


The ending of your life

by sam_midwinter



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Amputation, Angst, Assassination, Based on a Tumblr Post, Brainwashing, Broken Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes also glitches, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Character Death, Completed, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Happy Steve Rogers, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Instability, Other, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prisoner of War, Sort Of, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers has a family, Steve Rogers is Not Captain America, Steve lives a life, Steve never went to war, The Avengers still are a thing, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, World War II, bucky's family - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-06-17 19:28:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 47,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15468408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_midwinter/pseuds/sam_midwinter
Summary: In 1943, Steve Rogers finds out that his best friend is killed in action, and there was nothing he could do to save him. He has an entire life to live still, and he lives it with the knowledge that Bucky never will.In 1943, Bucky Barnes is still alive, but he's not well. He's breathing, he's thinking, he's walking, he is still Bucky. For now.In 2014, Steve Rogers follows the news about a car that got flipped over in broad daylight in Washington where he lives, and thinks he lives in an interesting time.





	1. Chapter 1

1943, December - 

_Don’t win the war ‘til I get there._

Don’t win the war ‘til I get there. Hadn’t he said something along those lines? Steve couldn’t remember anymore, it felt so long ago now. The amount of childish hope that had been behind those lines sickened Steve to his stomach now. Once upon a time he had dreamt to be over there, he had taken pride on the idea that he _would_ fight once the US army would finally accept him, or when he would slip through the cracks and make it over to Europe. He had taken pride in the idea of being a soldier and standing up for what was right before he had worn that uniform. 

Steve had wanted to go and fight for all the right, selfless reasons he thought. He hadn’t cared much about what could happen to himself. He knew that just as well as the next person. War brought injuries, war ensured that people never came home. He should have known the latter. He had grown up without a father, a man that had met his end because of mustard gas. He should have known that war kills those close to you. 

As much as he had wished he had a father in his life, Steve realised now that saying he had a father who died in the war who he never had met, didn’t quite have the same impact as knowing someone who had died in the war. Someone who had been by his side for so long. Someone who had left. And now someone who would never come back. 

Winnie sniffed again, pressing her handkerchief against her nose. She kept her gaze low in an attempt to hide her red eyes. The time that it had taken Steve to make her the cup of coffee she had scrunched her skirt five times over, and flattened it again equal amount of times. Now when he finally sat down in front of her he knew what she was about to say before she even had spoken. 

“They came by this morning.” Winnie began, she placed both of her hands down on her knees, folding her fingers together and paused. Gathering courage, swallowing down sorrow, choosing her words. Steve looked down to his own shoes and his own hands, also folded together. He swallowed, but the muscles in his throat had tensed, shaping themselves into a ball of iron that didn’t want to go down. He closed his eyes, hoping that she wouldn’t see the tears that threatened to spill. She didn’t have to deal with that, or him, she was mourning a son, and she didn’t have to look after someone else when she had to harbor her own loss. 

“They brought this, fancy envelope. Beige. They didn’t have to say much.” Winnie took a shaky breath, allowing the tremble in her voice cling to her words. And knowing Winnie she would now have cast her eyes up to the ceiling, wanting to appear strong while her thin lips would seem to disappear as she pressed them together. “Our sincerest condolences Mrs Barnes” She mimicked. “And then they handed over the envelope.” 

Steve nodded slowly, stroking his thumb over the back of his hand. Wondering if he ought to say something. When he didn’t Winnie just continued bringing the painful news. “It didn’t seem real you know? Not until George opened that envelope. My boy was still alive until he took out that paper and read it. And I could see it on his face.” 

Steve could imagine George’s sharp, otherwise devoid of any emotions now cracking ever the slightest. He somehow thought that George would look a lot more like his son like that, the ever expressive, smiling and laughing Bucky, never stern. Bucky had inherited a lot from his father, but his eyes were so clearly his mothers. George’s eyes were as dark as his hair, and Winnie had the same icy yet warm stare. 

“K.I.A, George read. Killed in action. His unit was captured somewhere in Italy, near the Austrian border. Then they brought them to a camp in Austria, where they were kept as prisoners. They don’t think anyone survived.” Winnie’s voice was barely a whisper as she finished. And Steve felt relief over hearing the end of the story. Just as much as Winnie now must feel relief over not having to tell it anymore. 

“Will they be able to retrieve his body?” Steve asked, not being able to bring himself to say the body. And with some morbid curiosity he wondered just how it had happened. Had Bucky resisted in that camp? Had they shot him for it? Did he get sick and maybe a fever claimed him? Or did he just give up? Was it a work camp? Was it a death camp? He had heard rumours about those, finding it hard to believe that people would do such things to other. But war brought out the worst in people.

Winnie didn’t respond at first, scrunching her skirt again and then flattened it out once more. Another deep breath, an attempt to sit up straighter in the couch and come off stronger then she was feeling. “No.” 

They sat in silence after that. Allowing their cups of coffee grow cold and forgotten. Questions burned in Steve. Which he neither found the courage to ask for in fear of the answer, and some he kept to himself out of respect. Not wanting to put Winnie through more unnecessary pain that she already must have felt today. 

“We will be holding a wake, and a funeral. We’d like it for you to come.” Winnie stuffed her handkerchief in her purse, making all the subtle small hints that she was preparing to leave. And for the first time since Steve had sat down in the armchair in front of her, he dared himself to look at the woman. 

“Of course, I’ll be there.” Steve promised her, hating himself for sounding so bright as he did. There was absolutely nothing to be bright about, or happy. His best friend was dead, and his last memory of Bucky would be when he told him not to win a war until he got there. Well. Bucky wasn’t going to win any wars now with him, Steve thought bitterly.

Winnie stood up, purse clenched in her hands. Steve followed, getting up perhaps a little bit to quickly, and followed her to the door. “I thought, you might want to hear the news from us.” Winnie said as Steve reached to open the door for her. Steve paused. 

“I appreciate that Winnie, I do. If there’s anything that I can do I-” 

“I know Stevie.” Winnie gave him a sad smile, reaching over to pat him on his arm. Unable to help himself Steve let go of the door, and stepped over to Winnie instead to give her a hug. He felt how her arms wrapped around him, and he smelled the familiar scent of freshly baked bread hanging in her winter coat.

He was unsure how long they stood like that by his door, and he would have held Winnie forever if she didn’t let go of him. Her eyes were watering again and Steve knew that she wouldn’t want him to see her cry. “I’ll have Rebecca let you know when we’re having the wake and the funeral.” Her voice had taken on that tremble again, and Steve nodded. He opened the door for her, and Winnie instantly stepped out into the cold, two steps closer to her own home. 

She turned to him one last time, and gave Steve that same sad smile one last time before walking away. 

He let the breeze in for a couple of seconds, unable of tearing himself away. Then he stepped back inside and shut the door. Pressing his temple against the wooden door and shutting his eyes, he tried to remember how Bucky had looked that evening at the Stark Expo, in that green uniform of his that Steve had been so envious about. 

That charming smile that had captured the attention of so many ladies. And how many evenings and mornings it had made him return with red lipstick on his cheek and neck. His own lips a shade darker and something playful in his eyes. 

And Steve found that it was hard remembering Bucky like that. Instead his mind began to draw up the same, vivid images that had made him want to ask fifteen hundred questions to Winnie. He imagined Bucky with a clear shot in between his eyes, laying on the ground. He imagined Bucky with a wound on his leg, festered, pale and sweating as the fever was coursing through him. He imagined Bucky coughing, a deeper, more rattling, more devilish cough than Steve ever had. He imagined two faceless soldiers, beating Bucky down. And he couldn’t remember the Bucky from the expo at all.

Don’t win the war ‘til I get there. That had been almost exactly five months now. Five months where Steve had felt just as lost and as alone in the world as he had done when his mother had passed. Bucky had been there, helping him through that. And now Bucky was gone. 

The past two years had been hell on it’s own. Steve hadn’t given up, and at the expo had tried to enlist again. They had only told him to turn around and to walk away. No luck. The week later, no luck. And he was still wandering around in New York. Nobody had wanted him, nobody had let him fight for what was right. 

And then there had been the struggle of work, of having to pay for everything himself. Bucky had always helped, subtly at first. Respecting Steve’s desire to survive on his own, respected his pride in not accepting handouts. _Consider it my rent_ , he had said. Bucky had never officially moved in, but he might as well have at that point, _I eat three times as much as you do pal, it’s only fair._ And that, as much as Steve hated to admit it, had been noticed at the end of the month. Most of the time even sooner than that. But by far worse had been the loss of constant company of his best friend had been the hardest. 

No more jokes, no more pranks. No more Bucky leaning over his shoulder to see what Steve had been drawing, no more outrageous ideas for sandwiches that they truly couldn’t afford. No more playing all possible card games under the moon in the middle of the night by the stove in the middle of winter, sharing a bottle of drink between the pair of them on the floor until they got so drunk they couldn’t count the numbers on the sheet of paper anymore. No more Bucky laying sprawled out on the floor late boiling summer evenings, reading out loud in books with a horrible attempt to a British accent.

No more Bucky. He was gone. K.I.A. Another prisoner of war who never would get the chance to return to his family, to his best friend, and would never charm another girl again. The realisation of that finally pushed Steve over the edge. And he began to sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavily based on a tumblr post that has haunted me since the day I saw it. In which Steve never became Captain America and died, and thus Bucky Barnes was The Winter Soldier forever. With a few changes of course, some creative liberties and graying hair because Marvel's timeline seriously makes no sense at certain parts. This is a completed story which I will update twice a week. I will add tags and characters as I go along with the story. Anyway! Hope you all enjoy it, I've had a serious blast writing this summer project of mine.


	2. Chapter 2

1943, October -

It was either to fucking hot, or to fucking cold, with living hell in between and Bucky found himself cursing the devil and god both for having put him on this earth and in this place. The bars of the cell were digging in his back, and spaced just far apart enough that he couldn’t rest his head against them. He could lay down, but that would hurt. 

His jumper that the army had given him was damp, clamming against his skin and preparing him for another freezing night. With his eyes shut he tried to envision his bed, warm and soft, with two pillows and right next to a heater with the summer sun having warmed up the brick building. He missed New York, no matter how dreadful it at times could be in the winter. 

“Do you think they’d turn the heating up if we asked?” Gabe asked from beside him, which made Bucky snort. Dugan barked a laugh, and Bucky didn’t have to open his eyes to know that the other was shaking his head at Gabe’s attempt to lighten the mood a little bit. 

“You can try.” Dugan responded, not sounding in the faintest bit amused with the idea. He sounded angry, fire ants bustling under his skin begging for a fight. Bucky had honestly thought that Dugan would be the first to throw a punch to the Nazi’s, but instead he had been surprised to learn that Dugan knew which moments to keep his hands to himself and when to use them. And now for the few weeks they had been here he had been using his hands very diligently to work on that blasted plane of theirs. 

“Just think of summer and a warm bed and you’ll feel better already.” Bucky mused, feeling someone thump against his leg and pulled them back in. In small spaces stretching one's legs were a privileged, one you respected and let others take their turn. In the end no one was comfortable. 

“Does that wishful thinking actually make you feel better Barnes?” Pinkerton asked, Bucky cracked his eyes open and saw that it was the square jawed man that had claimed the space that Bucky just had given up. 

“Sure as hell makes me feel better than looking at your face.” He commented dryly, then sighed and let his head fall in between the bars. He wondered if the Nazi’s, or Hydra, or whatever the fuck they were supposed to be, starved them long enough if they’d be able to walk just through them. He doubted that they’d have enough energy if it came to that. Every muscle and every bone in his body was already aching. 

“So rude, what would your mother say if she heard you talking like that with your friends huh?” Pinkerton teased, reaching out for another nudge at Bucky’s knees. 

“She’d probably tell you to shut the hell up and go to sleep like the rest of us.” Morita growled, getting up from the fetus position he’d been laying in while he had been trying to get a bit of shut eye. He looked at Pinkerton, a mixture of amusement and annoyance in his expression, then shook his head. and rubbed both of his eyes with his hands. 

“She probably would.” Bucky agreed with Morita. He glanced around in the cell, all men but two were sitting down on the floor, and two were leaning against it and talking to one another in hushed tones. Bucky didn’t bother to try and overhear. It was funny how easily it was to block out others conversations when you were so cramped together with one another. It was almost like being in a bar, almost. 

That was what made it bearable, comparing their situations with moments that were familiar, just with slightly altered surroundings. Familiarity, Bucky had found, had helped him a lot during the past year. When all he had wanted was to run away. He had thought about it. He had thought how easy it would be to just walk away from it all. But he had also thought how difficult it would be to actually make it somewhere. 

He hadn’t wanted to face the consequences of desertion, and he hadn’t wanted to end up in enemy hands either on his way to somewhere safe. What irony, he had spent so much time thinking about it and not actually doing it. Instead doing all what he hadn’t wanted to do, shoot people, kill people, fight and live in fear. He was already dreaming, and even now when he was in a cell, when he was safe, he dreamt of being out on the field, of sleeping and waking up and seeing them over him with their guns aimed at him. Life was funny like that. 

And yet, Bucky found some sense of inner peace. He wasn’t ready to die, but that was where part of his inner peace came from. He was still alive, even if the situation was dire. Even if they were made to work sixteen hours a day without any breaks, where all they were fed was a paste that could barely be considered food and left to sleep in sub zero temperatures. But he was alive. 

And Steve, the ever so brave Steve was still back home. Of course Bucky had no way of knowing this, but he chose to ignore that fact willfully. Instead he thought of that warm bed with the bricks warmed up by summer, and he thought of Steve in his apartment, drawing whatever he had seen. And as long as he stuck with that mental image, Steve was okay in his mind, in his memory, in his… well, everything really. 

“Who the hell got you?” Dugan questioned, kicking Bucky’s knee with far less grace and more force than Pinkerton had gone. Not enough to hurt, but enough for Bucky to know that he’d be bruised the following morning. It wasn’t anything special, Bucky had found that he could bruise himself by just applying pressure. That was how little they were feeding them, and showed just how much that damn paste was doing. 

“What?” Bucky questioned, being pulled out of his thoughts again. Dugan just smacked himself by his mouth, his nose, his cheekbone, his eye and temple. Bucky winced a bit at the thought, and the sudden tension in his muscles brought back the reality that his ribs were still fucking hurting and that breathing was quite the drag. “Lohmer, must have looked at him wrong or something, he went ballistic. Didn’t catch a word of what he was saying.”

“He speaks absolute shit German for being a German.” Jacques piped up with his musical way of speaking, French accent still interlaced with his English words, and thus managed to translate the language of love in the way he was speaking. 

“Prick.” Dugan muttered, glancing around over the cell again. Some more men had gone to sleep, and the two men that Bucky had seen standing up earlier had sat down now. But another figure raised up just as two guards were passing by. Upon noticing them Bucky pushed himself away from the bars, far enough to be out of their vicinity so he wouldn’t receive the butt of a gun in his head just for their amusement. His ribs ached at the movement, throbbing. 

But the third person, barely old enough to be of legal age, seeming more to be someone who had managed to get recruited by lying on his forms, got up and went up to the bars. Wrapping his hands around them. 

“Shit, that kid doesn’t learn does he?” Gabe mused as he shuffled away from the bars himself sitting next to Bucky. And the kid waited, watching the guards intently as they were closing in cell by cell. Bucky felt a twisting feeling in his gut. 

“I can’t watch this again.” Bucky muttered, and with the help of Gabe’s shoulder, pulled himself up so he stood on his two feet. His vision darkened, and he saw stars for one… two… three seconds, and then cleared. Walking amongst the prisoners was harder than it looked, some moved as he approached, leaning to the side, but some ignored him all together. And some slept right through him. 

Just as the guards reached up to their cell and the young man, Bucky reached him as well and with a hard knock got the kids hands off the bars. Not before the kid had the chance to speak, had the gut to ask for water. 

The guards stopped, exchanged a few words with one another and then looked back to the kid, whose eyes had lit up with a ray of hope, and the anger of Bucky having come and knocked his hands away was gone just as fast as it had appeared. 

“Was?” One of the guards asked, grinning at the pair of them. 

“Kid don’t.” Bucky spoke to him on a low voice, grabbing the other by his bicep. And god, even if he was so young and looked more full of life than any other prisoner, he nearly fit his hand around him. 

“Water?” The kid asked hopeful, ignoring Bucky beside him and attempting to shove him away without looking. The German soldier repeated himself to the kid, questioning what he had said. Bucky glanced at the guard and understood that the man knew fully well what the kid was saying. But was just drawing it out the kid because he could. “Uhh fuck, what’s the word, fuck help me.” The kid said, looking at Bucky for the first time since he had gotten up beside him and acknowledged his presence. 

“Kid don’t or you’ll get your water in a way you don’t want it. Just step away and leave them alone.” Bucky hissed to him, attempting to pull him away from the bars but the kid wasn’t having it. 

“Wasser! That’s it right?” The kid exclaimed with such joy at his revelation, that Bucky couldn’t help but look up and pray to whoever was listening that the guards were on a good mood. “That must be it, Wasser, uhh.. uh, Bitte?”

“Oh, er will wasser!” The guard who had been drawing out the kid smiled in a sinister way before looking at his partner. “Lass uns etwas wasser holen.” The guard nodded down the hall, and began walking off with his partner without even bothering to check the other cells. 

“See!” The kid tugged his arm out of Bucky’s grip, glaring up to him. “Sometimes you just have to ask, that’s all.” He said, and the way he spoke felt like a pang in Bucky’s chest. The naivety, the way he spoke and acted reminded Bucky far to much of Steve. 

“You just held your hands around the bars kid. If they were in a nasty mood they could have broken your fingers with one simple bash of their gun. And they’re not going to drag you to a doctor and tomorrow they would have shot you for not being able to work. Did you ever keep that in consideration?” Bucky hissed to the kid in a hushed voice. Knowing that no one was overhearing them, but not wanting to give anyone the gratifaction of doing it either. 

“... No?” The kid responded, suddenly looking ashamed and Bucky instantly felt guilty for using the tone he had. He sighed, and squeezed the kid on his shoulder instead. 

“Just think about it for next time alright?” Bucky told him, sliding his hand off his shoulder and moved to step away. 

“I’m Jonathan.” The kid spoke up suddenly, as if aiming to keep Bucky in place. It worked somewhat, and Bucky paused in his tracks, looking at him again. “Do you mind if I… come and sit over there? With you and your friends? They don’t… really like me on this end.” 

The urge to drop a sarcastic comment washed over Bucky, but he bit his tongue. And the look of the kid, this Jonathan, so lost in the adult world and over his head, but still holding some childish naivety in him, hidden away deep inside that hadn’t been shattered yet in war. Bucky sighed, and found himself unable of saying no. “Sure, I’m Bucky.” He turned his back on him and began to walk back to the others. 

Jonathan followed Bucky diligently, and when Bucky sat back down next to Gabe, he squeezed himself in between Bucky and Morita. Dugan didn’t even waste a single breath. “Fucking hell kid how old are you?”

“Twenty.” Jonathan huffed up his chest, Dugan wasn’t buying it. And neither was anyone else. 

“How old are you really kid?” Morita asked in that voice that brought almost anyone down to their shoes. Jonathan looked guilty. 

“Sixteen…” Jonathan said on a much softer voice. Jacques cursed under his breath and shook his head. 

“And you ran off with the army, that’s fucking stupid.” Dugan once more made Bucky wish he would never father any children if he was going to speak to them like that. 

“Rich coming from the one who goes by the nickname dumb dumb.” Pinkerton commented, bringing a little bit of a smile back on Jonathan’s features, and a little bit more confidence grew back in him. 

“It’s Dum dum!” Dugan hissed, reaching over to smack Pinkerton, the other snickered and pulled away his leg in time. Even Bucky snickered before being reminded of his ribs. 

“I’m Jonathan. Jonathan Juniper.” The kid introduced himself, causing a ripple of introductions to go through their little circle. Dugan made a comment about Jonathan’s surname, overvoiced by the others who asked him the kinder questions such as where he was from (New Hampshire) and that he had dreams to go to Dartmouth once the war was over. 

While Bucky liked the men that he had on his side of the cell, it was refreshing to have someone new in the group to talk to, it spurred new life in old conversations that had died, and for a moment all of the men forgot the position they were in. 

At least until Bucky felt ice cold water pour down his head and neck, down his back and soaking his damp jumper even more. Behind him, the two german guards laughed. “Hier is dien wasser!” One of them shouted, holding the bucket in both hands. Bucky shut his eyes, counted to three and tried to think of the warm bed and the warm summer bricks. Gabe, Dugan and Pinkerton shot up from the ground, slamming against the bars. The guards just laughed, threw the bucket at them to make them flinch back, and started to walk off. 

“See what I mean, you’ll get your water but not the way you want it?” Bucky asked Jonathan under his breath. Jonathan nodded, but there wasn’t a single hint of defeat in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My German is very minimal, so any errors should be taken to google translate. However if you can tell I messed up then please let me know and I’ll try to figure out better ways of phrasing it. Hope you all enjoy it! I’ll most likely will be updating on Tuesdays and Saturdays. That seems to work the best with work and real life and all, anyway, enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

2014, January - 

The sleep of an old man is an enemy. Annoying at best, cruel at its worst. Steve knew that he most likely would be able to sleep full nights if he didn’t fall asleep in front of the television every day after the midday news for three hours. Of course it would be difficult to fall asleep again come evening, and to sleep for more than four hours. But how was he expected to stay awake at noon if he hadn’t slept properly during the night? 

It was a vicious cycle that had tortured him for the past thirty years, and he was convinced that if he hadn’t retired that he never would have ended up in the cycle to begin with. He had believed he could let himself break free of it however, but once he had moved into The Meadows he had only solidified it’s hold on his routine. Not even moving out of The Meadows had broken that, he had brought the bad habit with him all the way from New York to Washington. And as Steve looked out of the window from his bedroom, seeing a view that had become familiar over the past two years but still was far from welcoming and homely, he found himself missing the city where he had lived his entire life. 

Steve began the process of getting out of his bed slowly, a retired man had nothing but time on their hands (although for the first two decades of it, he found that it had been the complete opposite) and thus he could take an hour.

His muscles were stiff from the night, and warming them up at times felt like breaking the bones that they were strengthening in the first place. His morning consisted of nothing else but pops and cracks as he inch by inch worked the stiffness out of his limbs, and pushed himself up in a seating position, feet sliding down and finding his slippers. He sighed when he sat up, and looked out of the window once more and allowed himself a break. Sitting up had taken ten minutes, and while the walk from the edge of his bed to his own private bathroom was only six feet, it was in fact eight to the toilet before he could sit down again. 

At ninety-six years old, he prided himself in the fact that he still had to have his first, dreaded fall, and he hoped that he would live out his remaining time without feeling first handedly how the morning chill in the floors felt. 

A clumsy hand patted down his nightstand, careful so he wouldn’t knock over the glass of water, and eventually found the thick rimmed glasses that he put on. The room went from a haze to sharp, although there was one hazy blotch in his right eye. A fingerprint, he’d clean that of later. Steve still didn’t know when his eyesight had gotten so bad, he suspected it had come somewhere in the seventies, when he had begun holding out the morning newspaper further and further away to be able to read it. Oh how Eva had laughed at him. 

Pushing the brakes down on his walker, Steve began the first attempt of the morning in standing up. He slid closer to the edge of the bed, and made the first attempt. As expected, Steve barely made it an inch of the bed. Muttering to himself, he re-adjusted himself and pressed his knuckles down in the mattress of the bed and pushed himself up, attempting to pull himself up with the other that still gripped the walker. He made it further up, and on his third attempt Steve stood on his own legs. With small, shuffling steps he made it into the bathroom. 

The every morning routine in the bathroom took a good forty minutes, with Steve taking his time doing everything himself. Another thing he prided himself on, he remembered from his time in The Meadows that there were others less fortunate, who needed help brushing their teeth and buttoning their shirts. 

While Steve had always admired the nurses for this, and been polite for any help that they offered, he had at the same time always found it degrading, and would not have wanted to be in that position himself. Though it was a comfort, knowing that the help was always there should he need it, but for as long as he could Steve wanted to manage things on his own. 

So where was the harm really? In that it took forty minutes for him to get dressed? To brush his teeth, to brush his hair and to button his shirt? He didn’t want to burden Joseph with it (even if his son gladly would have helped, and probably would have before Steve even had asked), and he most certainly did not want to ask Diane for help. 

And it was a good warm up. By the time that he observed himself in the mirror and flattened out the tie against his chest, he felt limber, and a lot of the stiffness that had been built up during the night had seeped out of his bones. So with more ease and a slight spring to his step, Steve exited the bathroom and went back to the bed. He made the bed to his best extent, patting it down as well as he could and spread out the blanket over it. 

Just as Steve finished up, he saw the red digits on his alarm clock turn to seven, and he sat down on the edge of the bed again. Letting his gaze go over the dual picture frame next by the clock, Steve smiled softly and spoke. “Good morning beautiful.” 

The picture to the left, which he had spoken to didn’t respond of course. Steve never expected it to do so. But it made him feel better every morning and every evening to talk to her. Eva smiled her wide smile, her thick black hair past her shoulders, dark beautiful eyes that gave of so much playfulness, so many instant jokes and witty comments that she could crack in the blink of an eye. 

The picture to the right was in color, and not in black and white like it’s counterpart. It featured Eva, standing in front of their apartment building back in Brooklyn holding their youngest son. Joseph stood in front of her with a bruised knee, and holding his little sister’s hand, who waved at the camera. Steve loved that photo of all four of them, even if it had cost them a small fortune. 

“Today we’re going to the doctor again.” Steve continued talking to Eva, licking his dry lips. “The results are in, I still don’t understand why they can’t tell us over the phone. It would save everybody time. I’m not to worried, I feel fine. And healthcare is amazing these days, you would have loved it. They can do so many things.” Oh he wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for that evolution, Steve thought. 

Who would have thought back when he was young, that he would live this long? He had outlived so many who had believed he would die before he’d reach his fiftieth year, his fortieth, and in some cases even his thirtieth. And truth to be told he hadn’t believed it himself. But it had been that constant evolution, constant new discoveries, new paths and directions that they had taken that resulted in him sitting here. Along with Eva, who always had known which doctor to go to. She had been good to him, she had been good for him. And so, as the years had creeped by, his health had gotten better. 

Sure, he didn’t like having to take what felt like a hundred of pills in the morning, but at his age he supposed it was normal. And now he was still walking, sound of mind, what more could he ask for? 

“Joseph took the day off for it, said he would drive me. I told him he didn’t have to and that I could take the bus. But you know what he’s like.” Steve snorted. “I know I know, gets that from me.” Steve paused. “I love you good looking, and I’ll be sure to tell you what the doctors said when I get back. But I know you’ll be there with me. I will see you later.” Steve patted the nightstand, and looked at the picture of Eva for another moment. 

Then he took a deep breath, and used the walker to help himself back on his feet. As he reached the door to his bedroom, he parked the walker and took his cane instead. He felt felt limber enough to get around with the help of the cane alone, and the apartment was by far to small for him to cruise around with the walker. He opened the door and stepped out of his bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but here have a glint of Steve's life before we dive in head first!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve finds out some things about Bucky he didn't know before, nor could imagine.

1943, December -

Steve had dug out the very same clothes he had worn to his mother’s funeral for the wake. It had been less than a week since Winnie had come over to his apartment to tell him the dreadful news, and Steve wondered if that was enough time for him to lose the weight he had to make the suit feel like a tent. Or if it had been an ongoing process over the past few years that he hadn’t noticed. 

And he had felt ashamed for turning up like this, with clothes that didn’t fit and bag under his eyes. At least the clothes covered how skinny he looked, but he couldn’t hide the sharp features in his face. He hadn’t eaten much since he had found out, he hadn’t been hungry, his appetite had seeped right out of him and all that Steve had the energy for to do was to sleep.

So he had gone to the library and worked, and when his shift had ended he had gone home and slept. The very next day he had repeated it. And again, and again. But he had made sure to always stop on his way to and from work by the apartment of Bucky’s parents, just ask and to make sure that there was nothing he could do. Every day he had been met by the same response coming from all family members. Red eyes, weak smiles and thank you Steve, but there isn’t much you can do.

The Buchanan apartment was filled with people for the wake, crowded and warm, which didn’t surprise Steve in the slightest. Bucky had always been well liked, even those who claimed to hold a level of dislike for his friend had liked him somewhere, even if it just was for his cheek. So it wouldn’t have been a wrong assessment to make that half of the street had turned up for the wake, people Steve had known all his life, and people he had never seen before. 

Steve stood alone in the corner of the living room, allowing Winnie and George to speak to the friends of their son in peace without him interfering, clinging to them like a toddler. He had already decided that he would be the last person to leave, and he would help Winnie with all the cleaning that had to be done after. He grasped his glass of water, wishing that it was something stronger and couldn’t bring himself to look at the photo on the table. Yet his eyes kept sliding over to it. 

He didn’t know what part of him had thought they would use the picture of Bucky in his uniform, which George had been so proud off. But upon seeing that it was a picture of two summers past, of Bucky leaning against a barrel with his arms crossed over his chest, laughing at something that had been said out of the frame of the photo. Seeing that had felt like twenty knives being twisted in his stomach.

Looking down into his glass of water, he spun it around and wished for this afternoon to be over with, and to last for all eternity at the same time. 

“Steve, hi.” The voice was soft and fragile, sounding as if it would break. Steve looked up from his drink, and saw Dolores. Her smile trembled for a moment, then she stepped forward to hug Steve. He hugged her back, having a feeling that she needed it more than he did. 

“Dot, hello, I didn’t-” Expect to see you here? No, that was a cruel thing to say. She took a sharp intake of breath, and unlike Steve found the power to look over her shoulder and to the picture when they broke their hug. Her features started to crumble, corners of her mouth turning downwards and lines becoming visible by her eyes.

“It’s terrible isn’t it?” Dot began, gesturing over the room, looking at the people with an expression that Steve pinned being a combination of grief and a mysterious hint of disgust. “This whole ordeal, James…” She trailed off, eyes lingering on the picture that Steve had done his best to avoid since his arrival. She shook her head again, black curly hair loosening from the way she had put her hair up, somehow that single lock made her look ten years younger. 

“Yeah.” Steve agreed, not quite knowing what else to say. He had only met Dot on a handful of occasions, and he couldn’t remember talking to her on his own for more than five minutes without Bucky there to steer the conversation into a different direction. Or to just be the centre of it. 

“I’ll miss him.” Dot whispered softly, gently stroking the rim of her cup with her finger. Now she didn’t just look a decade younger, she also sounded it. A child lost in the world and being forced to grow up. Perhaps it was her first time dealing with a loss, Steve imagined for himself. 

“We all will.” Steve didn’t know how to offer his comfort, how to offer his support. He didn’t know if all Dot wanted was just someone who would listen to her, or someone who would hug her. Maybe all she wanted was someone to just talk to her, make her feel less alone and tear away her thoughts of the dreadful future that would follow once the wake was over and she would have to go home. 

“He spent the night with me you know, the night before he left?” Dot began softly, glancing at him as if to judge how upsetting her words would be to him. To see if he was aware or not. And Steve was surprised, he hadn’t known. Bucky hadn’t come back to his apartment that evening, and Steve had always thought that Bucky had spent the night with his family before having to leave first thing in the morning. Ever since Winnie had questioned him and all he had been able to say had been _"No I thought he spent the night over at your place?"._ Ever since then, it had been a mystery where Bucky had spent the night. But off to war he had gone.

“I didn’t know that.” Steve told her, and Dot seemed to relax at Steve remaining his calm self, not showing any jealousy. 

“Yes he uh.” Dot licked her lips, her red lipstick fading ever so slightly. “He, he came over after the expo, actually, I think it was still going on.” There was a vague sense of pride in her words, and she smiled softly at the memory. “He had been drinking. Quite a bit, but he wasn’t his usual self you know? The smiling, laughing hugging man who didn’t think that anyone could do any wrong, and who would nag your ear off just to remind you that he loved you and that you meant the world to him.”

Steve chuckled softly, partially cursing himself over doing so. Was it really appropriate during a wake? He didn’t think so. But at the same time they had been reminiscing in a memory of Bucky, a good one, and he would have wanted them to laugh Steve thought. “Yes I know.” Steve had walked home with that Bucky countless of evenings, and at times even helping Bucky stay on his feet properly, which had been quite the task for someone his size compared to Bucky. 

“He had been crying. He didn’t want to admit it when I let him in but he had. His eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks were still wet. He was still denying it by the time he began to cry again.” Dot’s voice had become a whisper at that, her eyes going blank as if she was reliving the memory. Steve had never been to Dot’s apartment, and as he imagined the scene he found it taking place in his own living room. Bucky sitting on the couch, fingers through that hair which he had spent an hour on to get just right. And Dot beside him, concerned and trying to get Bucky to look at her. 

“He told me he was afraid Steve, that he didn’t want to die. That he didn’t want to go overseas and die in some place that he couldn’t even pronounce. He was afraid and he begged me to run away with him. To Canada or something, that maybe he’d slip through the cracks there. To come with him and to marry him and we’d have kids and… and just a whole lot of drunken talk.” She chuckled, as if that took away the depth of what she just had told Steve. 

And for a moment he didn’t know what he could respond to that. The so very vivid image that Dot had painted up for him in his imagination, clashed with everything that Steve knew about Bucky. And yet… he found that he had absolutely no trouble in accepting it as another truth. Somehow, it felt natural, and somehow it felt like Bucky. 

“I told him that we would marry, and we would have children, and he interupted me instantly and said five, he wanted five, and oh please could we go to Canada, Toronto, or Montreal or even Quebec, he’d learn French for the both of us.” Dot chuckled again, eyes growing watery but smile still hinting at how charmed she had been of the suggestion. “So I said, I regret that now. I said that we would marry, and we would have five children if he wanted, and that we could go to Canada. But first he had to go overseas, that there would be plenty of time to do all that when he came back. That he would survive, and that he’d be fine and that he’d feel silly when he came back home, about how he thought about running. And he looked so… so…” 

Dot licked her lips again, fading her lipstick more. Steve felt the ice in is gut grow colder. He wanted to throw his drink down to the floor and shatter his glass. Even if he agreed with what Dot had told Bucky. And he knew now off himself that he would have told his friend the same. 

“He just looked so disappointed Steve. So sad, so scared.” The corners of Dot’s lips turned downwards, lines appeared and Steve awkwardly raised his hand to rub her back as she was moments away from breaking out in a sob. “And I keep thinking over and over now, if I had agreed, if I had run away with him that night, that now he would still be alive. I keep thinking that he now is dead because of me, died in some place overseas that he probably couldn’t even pronounce.”

“It’s not your fault Dot.” Steve tried to sound forceful, even if he found difficulty telling her that he thought she had done the right thing. He felt torn, and no longer sure if he could stand by his own thoughts and morals in the matter. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.” But Steve did, just as much as the other half of him didn’t blame her. 

“I’m sorry I didn't mean to unload all of this on you like that.” Dot took a shaky breath, waving some air in her face before drying her eyes. “I just… I couldn’t tell them you know? Winnie and George. And I had to tell someone, it was eating me alive. Thank you Steve.” And despite the grief in her eyes, she had a genuinely kind smile at that moment, and Steve understood all at once why Bucky had been so enamoured with Dot. All the girls in Brooklyn and New York, but at the end of the evening he still wanted to dance with Dot.

“It’s okay.” Steve gave her a stiff smile, removing his hand from her back and then coughed awkwardly. Unsure if he ever had spent as much time talking to a woman that wasn’t Winnie or one of Bucky’s sisters all of a sudden, and cursed himself for having that thought so suddenly. 

Dot’s sudden sniff was harsh, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw how she straightened her back, and in one quick moment all of Dot seemed cold. “What is she doing here?” She asked with hostility in her voice, nodding ever so slightly past Steve’s right. He turned to look, not quite certain of who she meant. But he imagined Dot didn’t mean Bucky’s aunt and uncle. He frowned, realising she meant the brunette woman talking to them. 

“Who, Connie?” He asked, turning to look back at Dot, whose nod was miniscule. “She’s a close friend of Bucky.” He explained. 

“He stood her up. During the expo, he came to me, and didn’t stay with her.” She snapped, placing her hand on her chest as if to lay claim on Bucky. Any sympathy that had for her, vanished in that possessive instant. 

“She’s a close friend, she deserves to be here.” He told her cooly. Dot brushed the lock of hair back behind her ear, once more turning stern. 

“They went on one date, and he stood her up.” She repeated, as if Steve hadn’t heard her the first time. Steve didn’t respond to that and looked at Connie who hadn’t noticed him. The urge to tell her the truth washed over him. Of how Connie and Bonnie hadn’t been a double date. But of how instead Bucky had offered to be there as a pin for the two girls, so they could enjoy their date in peace, so they could enjoy wandering around on the expo together without having to worry about men bothering them. Because there Bucky would be, seeming to be their chaperone while in truth he was just helping a dear friend have a wonderful evening with her secret girlfriend. And that on his last night before he had to leave, that, Steve found, was the height of selflessness. 

But it wasn’t his story to tell, so he continued to let Dot believe her little illusion. But that behaviour and statement alone, had been more than enough to sow doubts in the story she had just told him. 

“It’s disrespectful, to his parents, to his siblings, to you and to me.” Dot ended the conversation, turning her heel and leaving Steve alone. Allowing him to breathe once more. He shut his eyes, but the image of Bucky on his couch, crying and saying that he was scared with Dot by his side trying to talk some courage into him had been branded into his eyelids. 

“Did she give you one of her talks again?” A voice much warmer and softer spoke up, and it made Steve wonder how long he had been stuck in his haze of thought. The image seemed eternal, and one he felt would haunt him for years to come. But Steve was relieved at the sight of Rebecca, and upon sighing he felt the tension leave his shoulders. Rebecca snorted and pressed her glass against her lower lip, clearly having seen it. “I’ve never liked her you know? So bossy, but all she had to do was put on her lipstick and Buck was sold again for the next week.” Rebecca rolled her eyes and took a generous gulp. 

“Sounds about right.” Steve admitted with a half hearted chuckle before giving Rebecca a proper look. She didn’t have the the look of grief written all over her. Her eyes were red, but Steve pegged it came from something else. Instead, Bucky’s sister was radiating anger. 

“What are you drinking?” She inquired and nodded towards his glass. 

“Oh this? Just water.” Steve twirled his drink around. Rebecca nodded, chewing on her lower lip and then looked over the room. Scouting all most, Steve thought. She looked like she had done when she had been nine years old and had looked down the street to see if the coast had been clear for him and Bucky. 

“Want something stronger?” She asked, and then Steve pinpointed that the redness in her eyes came from drink. She hadn’t been crying, she had been drinking. He felt both scandalised, shocked and amazed at the same time. 

“Sweet jesus yes.” Steve told her, turning towards her as she magicked a bottle of gin out of her cardigan. Steve emptied his drink of water with one big gulp that brought tears to his eyes. She handed Steve her glass, and in quick well practiced movements opened the bottle and poured Steve a drink, then hid it back away in her cardigan. Any other day Steve would have wanted something else to drink it with, but today it would do fine pure. 

“I’ve needed it all day, can’t stand listening to all these people who believed they knew him. I know gramma is senile but it still angers me when she goes on about that one time when Bucky scrapped open his knee in the park and it scarred. That was cousin John-John.” Rebecca hissed, glancing at her grandmother on the other end of the room as if the woman could hear her. 

“Isn’t he here to point it out?” Steve asked, not certain he had ever met this cousin that she spoke off. Rebecca shook her head. 

“Nah, he lives down in Georgia, couldn’t make it up, ticket cost to much or something. It’s fine, we haven’t seen one another in fifteen years anyway so.” Rebecca shrugged again and pulled her cardigan tighter around her, wrapping the wool over her fingers and stretched it out. A habit she would never grow out of. “What was she on about? Dot I mean. Talking on about how she was the love of Bucky’s life again or something?”

“Something like that.” Steve admitted, imagining Bucky on the couch again, begging Dolores to run away with him, to marry him and five children, five. He couldn’t even remember a single moment where Bucky had told him that he even had wanted children to begin with. And then a big family like that on top of it? It seemed unreal, but at the same time not entirely unlike him. Rebecca scoffed. 

“She could dream, they would survive one week with one another before they’d regret that choice. The whole seventh heaven butterflies in the stomach would die away and then they’d argue, and one of them would end up leaving and slamming the door in the other. If they would have lasted they would have still been together.” Rebecca stated so flatly with a shrug, that it almost made the whole ordeal seem pointless. He could see her point, he had seen it. He had been there late at night, many times over hearing Bucky rant over whatever argument they had. But he had been there just as many times to see that dreamy look in his eyes when the argument was over and they were on talking terms again. 

“He seemed happy when they were together but… you’re probably right.” Steve agreed with her, deciding to take what Dolores had told him with a grain of salt. He didn’t doubt that some things had been said, but he just began doubting what Dot had told him. He wouldn’t call her a liar, he just started to believe that she understood something completely different from what Bucky had said just at that time. 

“Oh they were happy, I don’t question that, they were happy and good together during those times. But it was a puppy love. You know what they say, your first true love when you’re a teenager never dies. That should be the person who is your soulmate, who is forever your best match cause you fell in love with them in their rawest, truest shape as it was moulding itself. But he was fire and she was oil,” 

“That sounds poetic.” Steve told her. “I wouldn’t know, maybe you’re right. Someday I’ll find out.” Rebecca grinned and punched him on his arm, which Steve rubbed after and knew for certain he’d have a bruise there come evening. But he didn’t feel any pain, the little bit of gin had already made him feel lightheaded. 

They stood in silence for a while after that, observing the people around them. Rebecca’s eyes like a hawk on Dolores as she spoke, telling others how she knew Bucky and listening to their tale, while Rebecca continued to nurse her glass of gin. 

Steve finished his, and decided that one drink was well and enough, declining Rebecca’s offer for a refill when she offered it. They must have stood next to one another in silence for ten minutes before Rebecca spoke again, making Steve hold her glass this time as she poured herself another drink. 

“They drafted him you know.” Rebecca said in such an offhand manner, that Steve wasn’t certain if it was a question or a statement. When she didn’t continue, he broke the newfound silence in between them as she put the cap back on her bottle. 

“Pardon?” He asked in disbelief, handing her drink back. 

“They drafted him, he came to me when he found out and told me. They drafted him and he got scared.” Rebecca looked over to the picture of her brother on the table, expression blank and yet filled with so many hints of underlying emotions. “He didn’t want to go and fight.” 

“He told me he volunteered.” Steve blurted out, feeling a discomforting feeling in his chest. Asthma, the drink, the betrayal and disbelief… Steve didn’t know what it was. But when Rebecca looked at him and gave him a tired weak smile, he learned that the feeling in his chest was that of betrayal and disbelief, the feeling of having been lied to. 

She shook her head, and spoke the one sentence that confirmed it all. “Bucky got drafted.” 

“But why wouldn’t he tell me? Why would he tell me that he volunteered?” 

“How could he? When you were trying so hard to get enlisted and kept getting denied every time? How could he come to you and tell you that he got drafted, that he was going against his will to fight a war when you were doing everything in your power to volunteer to go there? He didn’t want to disappoint you, he didn’t want you to think him to be a coward. Because if he did, he knew that you would only try harder to get enlisted, and that eventually you would get enlisted and it would be his fault if you made it over there and if you died. He made me keep it a secret.” 

Steve looked at her, speechless and betrayed. Betrayed by Rebecca, betrayed by a crying Bucky on a couch wanting to run away. More weight and more truth now hanging at Dot’s words. Of course a man who got drafted would want to run away, but it hurt him knowing that Bucky hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him in person. How noble of him, to still want to protect him from such things.

“If he wanted you to keep it a secret, why are you telling me now?” Steve asked. Rebecca shrugged and pushed herself away from the wall that she had been leaning against. 

“Because I never wanted to keep it a secret Steve. And now I think that you deserve to know.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I usually post on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but you'll be getting this chapter a day early as I'm at a party tomorrow and wont be able to post it for you all. This was one of my more favourite ones to write, enjoy!

1943, October -

Bucky owed Dugan, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance to repay him. Before the week had gone by after Bucky had told Dugan and the others that Lohmer had been in a shitty mood and beat him up, Dugan, accompanied by Jonathan, Gabe, Pinkerton and Morita had somehow managed to sneak off and ensured that Lohmer wouldn’t get to beat anyone ever again. 

When told, he had been grateful, but he had also questioned them why they hadn’t run off if they had been unsupervised for that time. Why they hadn’t taken their chance when it had been in their hands. Morita had shrugged and said they wouldn’t have made it far, and that living another day was the better option. 

Bucky didn’t believe that. And he still found himself dreaming off that warm bed in the warm brick apartment. He dreamt of the sound of the ocean and seagulls crying, he dreamt off icecream and he dreamt of Dot’s laugh. He dreamt of a cabin in Canada, with her in bed beside him and five children making noise in the early morning and warm, warm feather blankets. 

Winter was cruel, and the heat that had them sweating as they worked on the Valkyrie didn’t stick with them in the evenings, when the entire camp sank to subzero temperatures and they were trying to sleep trembling, next to one another for a bit of body heat. And the paste, the paste that was supposed to be food that was getting increasingly difficult to keep down, but yet got scoffed down in hunger. A month ago he had been able to stay awake when they were back in their cells. 

Now Bucky found himself slouching down the moment he sat down, and the bars of the cell were far from as uncomfortable as they had been a few weeks ago. He shut his eyes and he dreamt, he dreamt of his mother telling him and his sisters stories, he dreamt of taking that art class with Steve, he dreamt of kissing Dot, he dreamt of the fifteen minutes of fame he got every time he had won a boxing match, he dreamt of working with his father, putting in doors. 

And during the day he worked, he put together a plane that he barely understood and learned more German by listening. He ate the paste, got sick and threw up, he slept and trembled, and he dreamt. He woke up without feeling rested, he woke up feeling terrible, he woke up needing help to get to his feet, and the stars that had clouded his eyes for seconds, refused to leave. 

He thought of songs, and he thought of that flying car that had only hovered which he’d never get to see again. He watched the sores and scabs on his hands not heal, and he noticed his ribs sticking out. He noticed himself getting lost when he spoke, forgetting what he was about to say, and he felt and heard his voice grow hoarse. 

To make matters worse, he not only felt it and heard it. But he saw it. He saw Morita getting a look in his eyes, one that showed he wasn’t there but miles and miles off. And he heard Jonathan, dubbed Junior now, attempting to keep his sobs for himself in the middle of the night. He saw Dugan, trying to stay strong and trying to stay stubborn, but he saw how he found it harder to get up. He saw Pinkerton grow gaunt, and he saw Gabe grow grey. 

He saw men fall as they worked on the Valkyrie, and he had stopped flinching when he heard the sound of gunshots as they were put out of their misery. He just worked on, without thinking, without feeling, and repeated the same movements over and over, even if he felt himself sway, and unsure if he worked quickly or slowly. He had lost his perception of time long ago. 

“Stay with me Barnes.” Jacques whispered beside Bucky. He was swaying again, back and forth, left to right. Relishing in the sudden flash of heat that was going through his body setting goosebumps on his skin even if it felt nauseating and it made him want to retch. He shut his eyes, and his head leaned forward by the weight of it. He had seen Jacques, who had spent the previous night (or had it been the night before?) digging out a tooth from his mouth yesterday. 

_It just loosened_ , he had said and thrown it away. 

“Barnes.” There was more stress to his voice, and this time Bucky felt the nudge by his side, he opened his eyes, and gripped ahold of the Valkyrie as he felt like he was falling. “Stay with me, dont drop. Don’t fall _ami_ , don’t fall. Stay with me.” Jacques loving french accent reminded him of his mother telling a bedtime story, so soft and so lulling, even when he hissed harshly. “Gabe!”

“Huh?” Gabe was pulled out of his own reality, looking up from his work that must have been at a standstill. Bucky felt his grip loosen of the Valkyrie, and he swayed again. 

“Shit, shit shit he’s falling Gabe grab him!” Jacques exclaimed. Bucky felt the others hands grab his arm, but his knees had already given out and the cold brush of air as he fell to the floor was such a relief against the nauseating heat that was twisting and turning inside of him like a thick yellow, sickening slug that ate everything in its path and left it with slime and mucus. 

“Barnes get up!” Jacques voice sounded miles away. “Gabe help me!” 

Trying to turn over, Bucky pressed his hands against the floor and tried to push himself up. He didn’t see them coming. But he had seen it so many times before, the soldiers marching over to those who fell and aimed their guns. One bullet and it was over, quick and efficient. The odd one they would drag away, but most were shot. He didn’t want to die. 

His shoulders strained at the effort of pushing himself up, and he thought he was going to be sick. The yellow slug had begun twisting again inside of him and he felt sick, and the cold floor was so good, so chilling and, and just for one second he could press his temple against it and enjoy it. Just one second. 

Jacques hands fumbled at him, and Bucky rolled onto his side just as they disappeared off him. He opened his eyes and saw the barrel off the gun in between his eyes. Vision doubled, tripled, but Bucky knew it was just one weapon. 

“Please.” He whispered, and thought of how many before him must have begged to die at this point. Begged for it to be over so they could go to their dream world, so they could move on to their next life, so they could go to heaven and be reunited with those they loved and wait for those who lived to join them. Bucky didn’t want that. “I don’t want to die.”

The german soldiers spoke to one another, but just like Jacques voice they seemed far away even if Bucky was rapidly beginning to come back to mother earth. The cold floor now all over his back, his head, and he could feel the blood rush back to his head and brain. The weapon became two barrels, then one. “I don’t want to die.” He repeated, raising his hands as to say that he was unarmed. 

He could barely make out Jacques, slouched together against the his box of parts with his hand covering his nose, blood pouring down his shirt and another gun aimed at him. So they had knocked him away. How kind. 

“I don’t want to die.” He repeated, the German’s heard him, the one holding the gun at him scowled at the words of his partner. 

“ _Zola will diejenigen die betteln._ ” His partner said, eyes fixed upon his friend as if he was prepared for the unexpected to happen. Bucky blinked, unsure of what had been said. He hadn’t understood the full extent of it. Wants those who, that he had understood, Zola, he figured was a name. The last word, betteln, that he couldn’t figure out. 

Then the gun was removed from in between his eyes, and the man with sharp blue eyes whistled in between his fingers, waving at two other soldiers to come over. “ _Dieser geht nach Zola!_ ”

Bucky’s breathing picked up, and panic started to wash over to him. He didn’t know what happened to those who were dragged off, but they weren’t to be seen again. There had been rumours in the cell, that those who were dragged off became experiments, and he had refused to believe that. But where would they take him, and what would this Zola want? For all sake, it was just someone who took a shine on people, and tortured them, a war brought out the best and the worst sort of people. 

The two soldiers that the blue eyed man had whistled over each grabbed him by one arm, and pulled him up. His vision darkened again by the sudden movement, and he stumbled over his own feet. The slam of the gun against his head made the darkness temporary, and Bucky wasn’t aware when they dragged him away. 

And for the first time in weeks, he got to sleep. It wasn’t much, on the moments he woke up he found himself tied to a slab. At least it was softer than the ground. But the position of being vertical, and having nothing to focus on made him doze off and into sleep often enough. Occasionally he woke when they jabbed him with syringes. At first he had fought to his best extent, they had made him feel sick. But after the third, he began to feel better. 

It wasn’t until after the fifth syringe, three days later, that he got the privilege to meet Zola. He was a tiny man with round glasses, standing beside him with notes in his hand. Looking at him curiously. He wrote something down, then walked away. And Bucky slept again. 

The second time Bucky saw Zola, his head was bursting and the little man spoke. “What is your name?” He asked in English, and it sounded foreign from someone Bucky knew wasn’t supposed to speak English. He had expected German, or maybe French, he had expected a communications barrier. Not English. 

Bucky swallowed, throat parched and dry and his head was drumming, needles fighting their way out in his skull. He almost said Barnes, he almost said his name before he remembered his training. If caught, if speaking with someone, especially an official, say your serial number. And it hurt his brain to think about it. 

“Sergeant.” He swallowed, voice feeling as if he hadn’t used it in a century. “Three, two. Five-five-seven. O-three-eight.” Zola didn’t say anything and kept observing him. Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut, and he began repeating himself. Fuck you, he thought. 

“Continue with the vitamins.” Zola said to a second person that Bucky hadn’t seen, and left him. The second man came up and gave Bucky another injection in his arm. He gasped, his arm was bruised purple from the rough injections and each hurt more than the other. He got another injection a few hours later, when it had grown dark outside. There was a small window that offered him some perceptive of time. But it still felt like he had been in there forever. 

He dreamt, he dreamt of Jacques digging out a loose tooth and of gunshots, he dreamt of his mother singing and he dreamt of Steve, safe back in Brooklyn, and he dreamt of Junior sobbing, he dreamt of all the people he had once known and in their eyes was the same thousand yard stare that had been in Morita’s eyes. 

Zola came by him every day, and every day asked for his name. And every day all Bucky would give him was his serial number. And whatever they were giving him, woke him up. He began to feel more alert, the nauseating heat in him began to seep away, and he began to feel as rested as he could for his position.

Then one day, Bucky tilted his head to the side and looked to Zola as he repeated his serial number. Not sure why he was doing it, why he was challenging him like that. But Zola smiled and didn’t even look down to his clipboard, he didn’t even take a note and he said. “He’s ready. Put him in the chair.” 

Bucky instantly regretted challenging the man like that. And when the soldiers came to untie him, he fought back. Filled with new strength after the vitamins (but he found that hard to believe, that they had been giving him vitamins), he fought and tried to shove them away, tried to use anything for a weapon. But he while he had been resting, he had been laying down for over a week, and standing felt like an all new sensation. 

All it took was a punch to blind him and lose his balance, and the guards were over him like flies over rotten meat and dragged him off. They threw him into a chair, and with a gun aimed to his head Bucky eased his protest. Breathing raggedly as they tied him to the chair. Zola came into the room again when he was tied to it, and smiled in an almost sinister way that still struck Bucky as polite. 

“Now Sergeant.” Zola began, going over to one of the tables by the side of the wall and began preparing a syringe, sickenly blue liquid being drawn into it. “It will be an absolute pleasure, to work with you.” Zola sounded sickenly sweet as he waltzed over, syringe out view until he reached up by his side. He placed a small hand on Bucky’s arm. “I’m afraid this will hurt a bit, can’t be helped.” 

And the injection burned, Bucky screamed as he felt the blue liquid push itself into his blood and into his veins, to thick to allow it in properly and the more that Zola pushed in the more hurt down his arm. It had reached to his little finger by the time that Zola pulled the needle out and applied a cotton swab to his arm. 

“Put it on.” Zola said, devoid of any emotion and interest as he stepped away with the empty syringe and began cleaning up his work station. The machine whirred, and Bucky felt it vibrate into his back. But when the moved above his head, bringing a plate down and another man in a coat came by and shoved a piece of cloth in Bucky’s mouth, he panicked. 

He had little time to panic, as soon after electricity scorched his brain.


	6. Chapter 6

2014, January - 

Breakfast consisted of nothing more but a bowl of cereal, which suited Steve fine. Somewhere along the years he had begun to discover that he was prone to feeling ill if he ate to large of a breakfast. He hadn’t had that in his youth, but people always aged in a million different ways besides wrinkling skin and graying hair. The biggest challenge however, had become to eat the cereal without spilling. 

Steve had tuned out Joseph discussing with Diane, having decided on the very first day of moving in with his son and his second wife that he would keep clear of their arguments and disputes. Even if he heard them clearly thanks to his hearing aids. It wouldn’t be a first time that he had turned it off, Steve had found that it gave him a better piece of mind. If he listened in then the urge to argue and throw in his five cents or to defend his son became quite strong. 

That morning however he didn’t need to turn of his hearing aids to tune out the discussion. The news on the small television in the kitchen had been more than enough to attract his attention. It was still showing the same footage from the past two days, of the heavy SUV that had been flipped over in the middle of the road after a movie like police chase, smoke still rising from it and yellow police tape wrapped around the surrounding area. 

The news reported repeated what had been said for the past two days, that the investigation was ongoing and they had yet to receive an official statement of the Washington Police Department in regards to the chase. Footage was shown again of witnesses, claiming they had seen a man in the middle of the road raising a weapon, fired and that had caused the SUV to flip over. None of these claims had gotten confirmed, and the news reporter once more pressed that they would give the full story the moment they had it. Then it flipped over to another story about some Captain America memorabilia that was about to go on auction for charity. 

Steve scoffed and focused on his cereal. He remembered Captain America. And while he at the time had found it good to have such a mascot to rally the spirit of the people during the war. But he had found himself disappointed at just how much Captain America had truly done. It had been performances and movies, public appearances and speeches. He had even gone over to Europe on a handful of occasions, and all his appearances had turned out to be weaker once on enemy soil. 

Eventually fame had reached to the man’s head, Marcus Wilmington Steve believed his name was, and he had gone down the very same road that had claimed Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. The man had died broke and in his own bathroom, a victim of his own concoction and a series of allegations to his name. But no one seemed to remember that now during the broadcast, as they showed footage that Steve once upon a time had seen in a cinema. 

The same day that Captain America had died, Eva had come home with a colleague of mine who was positively spooked by the whole ordeal. She told a story of how during the war, she had worked for Howard Stark, and that Marcus Wilmington wasn’t even supposed to be Captain America. The actual Captain America had died during an experiment, and the serum that they had used had been stolen partially, and the man who had designed it had been murdered amidst it all. Steve wasn’t sure if he believed such a wild tale, but she had spoken sounded scared as she told the tale.

Steve stopped listening to the news and finished his cereal. By the time he was done, whatever discussion that had been taking place in between Joseph and Diane was over. She had gone to the living room with a huff. Steve saw her over the half wall in her arm chair, watching her morning soaps. 

Joseph pulled the chair in front of Steve out and sat down with a heavy huff and placed an overfilled plate of eggs, bacon and some sausages down. Once he sat, the chair screeched backwards even more to make place for Joseph’s round belly. He had always been a tall, broad and muscular man, reminding Steve so much of his own father and namesake. When Joseph had become a teenager he had once showed a picture of his father to Eva to marvel at the resemblance. A head taller already by the time that he was thirteen, and outweighing him already by thirty pounds, Joseph had possessed an athlete’s dream body. 

But people aged differently, and while he had such a natural way of gaining muscle, he had never done much to maintain it. The result of that had been muscle mass when Joseph had been nearing his fifties, and now he was perfectly shaped to be a mall santa every Christmas. 

“They believe that card will be sold for seventy-five thousand, can you believe that? It’s vintage and got it’s own little plastic wrapping and everything.” Joseph reached for the remote upon noticing that Steve wasn’t watching and turned the television off. “You don’t have any of those laying around somewhere do you?” He joked with a hearty laugh and began eating his eggs.

“No. Never bought them back then. Your cousin Gustavio used to collect them as a boy, but he lost them in the fire. Had a shoebox full of them.” Steve recalled, the boy had been so bummed about that. Until he had started collecting stamps, claiming that they were worth far less than those cards so there would be nothing to fear should he lose them. Steve couldn’t remember Gustavio ever getting as invested in those stamps as he had been in the cards. 

“I remember that, he had this one where Captain was fighting a sea monster. He was real proud over that one. Used to show it off every chance he got.” He stuffed his mouth with eggs, and then spoke before having chewed, suddenly somber. “I got a message late last night on facebook from Thomas. He wanted to let us know that Arthur passed away.”

“What happened?” Steve asked instantly, remembering Arthur from the very first moment he had stepped into the Meadows and moved in two doors down from Steve’s own room. He hadn’t seen the man in years then, and it had been fun to see the man again after having spent countless of hours by the outside of the school waiting for their boys to come out. And that had escalated into beers on warm days and eventually barbeques. They hadn’t seen one another since Arthur had gotten that promotion and moved to Philadelphia. He had come back by his aging days to return to his roots he had said.

“Apparently he had a fall and shattered his hip, so they admitted him to the hospital. There he got a fever from the strain of it, and eventually a pneumonia and well, he couldn’t shake it after that.” 

“Ah, the dreaded fall.” Steve muttered, feeling the urge for a cup off coffee. “How old was he?” He began to scoot his chair back, grabbed his cane and stood up with a slight strain. 

“Eighty-six. He was younger than you. It’s a shame, I always liked Arthur.” 

“He was a good man. When will there be a funeral?” Steve asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee with a shaking hand. The weight was just a bit to much, but he managed to pour out his drink without spilling. 

“They’ll cremate him, they don’t know yet when there will be a funeral, he only passed last evening.” 

Steve returned to his own seat, more stability in his grip of his coffee cup. “I would like to go.”

Joseph looked up from his breakfast plate, one eyebrow raised. Steve knew that look, he knew that what was coming next was Joseph gently putting him down. Long explanations of to why and how they couldn’t do that. Always so hovering, Steve thought. If Joseph wanted to involve himself he could drive him to the train station. Steve was confident he would manage on his own once on the train. He knew plenty of people still in Brooklyn, and all he wanted to do was to say goodbye to a friend. 

“We’ll see when we have a date.” Joseph said simply, and ended the conversation with that. Steve didn’t argue yet, he decided that he would bide his time and come up with counter arguments to Joseph as to why he could go to the funeral. “You ready to go to the hospital as soon as I’m done?” Joseph changed the topic quickly, and continued to eat his breakfast. Steve nodded before sipping of his coffee. “You worried?”

“Not really.” Steve admitted. “Doesn’t matter what the results say, at the end of the day I’m ninety-six. I didn’t think I’d live to see this long. If I got nothing, very well, if I got something? Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t be the last man at this age.” 

“So neutral.” Joseph mused. “I’ll just hope it’s negative for the pair of us then.”

“You do that Joe. Now do me a favour and eat with your mouth shut, or swallow before talking?”

“Yes dad.” 

From the living room Diane cackled.


	7. Chapter 7

1946, June - 

Steve walked through the streets like a drenched cat, with rain still pouring down from the sky. It had been pleasantly warm for the past week, and he had enjoyed the bustle that came along with the heat. The kids playing in the streets and wasting water. But he hadn’t been prepared of the thirty-five degree drop that had happened overnight, bringing rain and misery with it. 

His wet coat clung to his back as Steve hurried down the street back to his apartment, wanting to get back inside and warm up so he wouldn’t get another cold at the beginning of summer. But a part of him feared that he was already way past the safety line. He had been out all day, going from store to store and place to place, trying to find a job. The library had been forced to let him go, and for the past year Steve had drifted from employment to employment until he found something solid. Often lying and saying he was capable of doing certain tasks while more often than not, he wasn’t capable. 

Today he had returned empty handed once more, and found himself cursing his stupidity during his youth of studying art. There was no living to be made of art, and while the struggling artist's life did have a certain appeal to it, it didn’t pay the bills or keep the heating on. He should have studied something else, something that would put him behind a desk safe and sound.

Those thoughts where ghosting through his mind as he wandered, occasionally jumping further away from the road as a stray car drove by and seemed to hit every damn puddle on it’s way. Attempting to soak Steve even more, as if there still was a dry inch of clothing against his skin. 

He should have stayed indoors today, Steve thought. He had seen the dark clouds roll over the city before he went out, and that should have been hint enough. But a man in need had no excuses. For all sake he could have found a new job. He could have gotten lucky. 

Today was not that day. He looked both ways before darting across the street, getting back up on the pavement with a skip in his step and his hands stuffed so deeply in his jacket that it strained by his neck. Gaze down, he continued further down the street before taking a right. 

He paused in his tracks not long after, unsure of what he heard through the clatter off the rain against windows and pipes. There was a shuffling of feet, followed by a grunt and a clear no being hissed. Confused, but not entirely uncertain what was going on Steve stepped forward, quickening his pace as he all the more grew confident on what he was hearing. As he looked into the alley he only confirmed his fears. 

The kid could barely be of legal age, struggling against the woman. Attempting to shove her away from him while keeping a solid grip over the strap of her purse. The woman wasn’t screaming, and neither did she look afraid. Instead there was a violent look of sheer determination and anger in her eyes as she fought back, attempting to kick and punch wherever she could. But the kid in his pubescent years still had more strength and cleverly positioned himself so she couldn’t serve him a kick to his crotch.

“Hey!” Steve shouted, forgetting about his direction home, forgetting about the rain and stepping into the alley like he had done hundreds of times before. The kid cast a look over his shoulder and sneered. The woman took her chance and drove her clenched first down on the kid’s hand. 

Steve grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on, which was a piece of wood, gained up to the kid who was at least a foot taller and broader than Steve and brought it down on his back. The wood, molded from having lain outside god knew how long broke apart with a dull thud. But it made the kid stumble forward and grunt a curse before being attacked again by the woman who had gotten closer and began punching the kids arm and ribs with as much force as she could muster, and threw in a couple of kicks to his shin for good measure. 

“Fuck this!” The kid exclaimed, and pulled at the strap with his entire weight and swung his body around. Surprised by the sudden change or perhaps just having lost her footing, the woman yelped and flew by the kids side, stumbled and dove onto the ground. Now being able to see the boy’s face, Steve attempted to punch the kid and did hit him by his jaw but it did little. The boy gripped Steve by his shirt and pulled him in, connecting his fist with Steve’s nose that let out a sickening crunch and then shoved him away. 

Steve stumbled back and over his feet, falling backwards into a puddle, blinded still from the punch and pain in his nose, feeling something warm come gushing over his lips and chin. 

“Mierda!” A voice shouted, which Steve heard was from the woman. Bringing his hand up to his nose and eyes squinting, watering, he looked at the alley just in time to see the kid round the corner and run off with a purse in hand. “Cobarde! Espero que te caigas y te rompas las piernas!“ She shouted after him as she scrambled back to her feet. Steve didn’t understand a single word, but he had a feeling that he would agree with her. 

The pain kept throbbing in his nose, he had never broken his nose before despite the amount of scuffles he had been in. He wouldn’t quite call them fights, not when he hadn’t walked out on top on a single one of them. He walked over to the woman, who kept kneeling down to pick up whatever she got her hands on, bottles, a brick, even an empty wooden basket and threw it after the boy. 

“I’m sorry.” Steve told her, voice sounding slightly wheezy and he could feel the warm… he removed his hand from his nose and saw how it was tinted red, already fading in the rain. Blood, he had blood pouring down. “I’m sorry we didn’t get your purse back. I just wanted to help.”

The woman picked up one last glass bottle and threw it to the opening of the alley, it hit the wall and shattered before she looked at him with ragged breathing. Her woolen coat was only darker by her shoulders, and her thick, wavy black hair was damp but not quite red. Her black eyes looked at him, engulfed him, and made Steve think about space. Red lips huffed, and then turned to a slight smile. 

“Thank you.” She said in perfect English and looked back to the alley. “He just pulled me in here. I didn’t see him, we’ve been scuffling for ages, or maybe just a few seconds I don’t know.” She laughed, shaking her head. “It’s only a purse.” 

“You should go and see the Police.” 

She laughed at him, shaking her head again and looked down to her legs. One of them bruised with a scrape, she brushed the gravel off with her hand. “And say what? Some kid dragged me in the alley? No sir, I didn’t see his face, no Sir, I don’t know who he is. That is even if, they let me speak to someone.” She tsk’d, then took a closer look at Steve’s face. “Can I know what the name of my rescuer is? And that looks like it hurts.” 

“Steve. And I’ve had worse.” Steve shrugged, if he had to choose he would much rather have his nose broken again over taking kicks to his ribs. It had taken months before he felt like he had been able to breathe without feeling the sting in his them. She laughed, somehow finding that answer funny, it made Steve smile and feel a little bit better. 

“Well Steve, I thank you again, my name is Eva.” She spoke her name rapidly and extended her hand for him to shake. Steve took her up on the offer. “Come on, let me at least get that cleaned up for you, and set it again. I’m a nurse. My family has a shop not to far from here.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to be off bother.” Steve told her, raising his hand and waved it. Eva snapped her fingers at him. 

“I don’t want to hear any protests, you came and helped me when you could have kept walking. Now come on, let me help you out with that nose, get you something to drink and warm you up before you get a cold. Come on.” She hooked her arm through his, and Steve felt his cheeks warm up as Eva led him out of the alley. 

As they walked, Eva told him it wasn’t the first time she had gotten herself in that situation, laughing it off that she really ought to stop wandering the streets on her own when they were deserted. But she also argued that why should she? Why should she have to hide away in fear of what other people might do? Didn’t she have a right to wander around in the pouring rain when everyone else was staying dry inside? Steve could only wholeheartedly agree with her. 

The shop that she spoke off was on the corner three blocks away. Lights seeming intoxingly bright when she opened the door and stepped in, pulling Steve with her and called out. There was music playing in the back of the room, static going through the radio and smelled of spices. Steve remained standing by the door, feeling awkward at the idea of following Eva through the small store. She moved behind the counter with such practiced ease that Steve didn’t doubt she had done it a million times before and kissed the elderly man standing behind the counter on his cheek. Steve nodded to the man, who gave him a scrutinizing look over his glasses. 

The man said something in Spanish, not taking his eyes off Steve. Eva responded from the room she had wandered into. Steve tapped his hand gently under his nose and looked at his fingers, no fresh blood, that was good. Even if his nose felt swollen and was still throbbing, but he didn’t have any difficulties breathing through it, which he was pleased about. Pretending not to hear the other two talking even if he couldn’t understand a word. 

The man continued talking to Eva, and when she passed by him with a box under one arm and carrying a bowl with the other. Then the man just pointed at Steve and said with disbelief. “Him?” 

“Si, him.” Eva said with a playful smile and put the box down on the counter, then gestured for Steve to come over. She had taken of her coat and left it behind, now wearing a nurses uniform that indicated she had come from work, and truly was a nurse. The man frowned, putting down his newspaper and pointed to Steve again. 

“Him?” The man repeated again while Steve awkwardly shuffled over to the pair. Eva pulled out a stool from under the counter and patted it down. Like a schoolchild Steve sat down. The man looked at Steve with a look that seemed to be pity. 

“Is there a problem?” Steve asked, unable to help himself. The man snorted. 

“No my father just doesn’t know how to be grateful to my rescuer.” Eva smiled at the man now identified as her father. “Take of that coat Steve, we’ll dry it for a bit.”

“I am grateful.” The man said, placing his hand on his chest and nodded to Steve, then gestured to him. “Just, so small. Must have looked like an angry little baby rooster.” He spoke with a snicker. The more he spoke the more of an accent started to seep through his words. Eva snorted and accepted the coat as Steve handed it over to her, then passed it on to her father. 

“Go hang this up to dry please?” She asked. Her father didn’t argue and took the coat, disappearing in the backroom. “Sorry about him.” Eva said and reached for a cloth, dipping it into the bowl that was filled with water. 

“It’s okay, don’t think I’ve ever been called angry little baby rooster.” Steve said with a soft smile to her as she gently began to clean him up. 

“He’s alright, comes across as a little bit insensitive, but he’s alright I promise.” Eva mused. “Your nose is broken I’m afraid, I can set it if you want. I’ve done it before.” She offered and looked at Steve with those dark eyes that seemed like Space. 

“Sure.” Steve shrugged slightly, he believed her. And with the nurses outfit he wouldn’t have been able to find a counter argument even if he wanted. Then quickly without any warning, Eva snapped his nose back in position. The pain went from throbbing, to a quick sharp spike, and then began to dull back to a throb. She smirked. 

“There, all done, you’ll probably be swollen for a couple of days but don’t worry about that. I’m just going to clean that cut and then you’re good. After you’ve washed your face properly maybe.” She laughed and straightened up. Her father came back into the shop and leant against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Your mother is nearly done with dinner. Does the angry little baby rooster wish to stay for dinner?” He asked, Eva looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow, as if to say I told you so and cleaned of the bridge of Steve’s nose with a cotton ball dipped in antiseptic. His nose stung a little bit, but Steve didn’t complain. 

“Stay Steve, warm up properly before heading back out. Jorge can give you a ride home later, my mother is an excellent cook?” She tempted him with, giving him a coy smile as she started to pack away her items.

“Well…” Steve wanted to say that he had dinner at home, that he didn’t want to intrude on them. But Eva looked at him with such an expectant manner, and her father had been the one to come with the invitation. “It would be rude to refuse.” 

“Damn right” Her father barked a laugh and extended his hand to Steve. “I’m Bernado, pleased to meet you angry little rooster.” Steve shook Bernado’s hand, and felt how his arm was nearly pulled out of its socket by the man’s sheer strength. 

“It’s Steve.”

“Oh no it’s angry little rooster now.” Bernardo laughed and walked past the counter. Eva called him out on it, but he just waved his daughter off and locked the door to the shop, flipping the sign over. “Come on let’s go up, dinner is probably ready.”


	8. Chapter 8

1946, December - 

The Camacho’s had been good to Steve. And he owed them. He wasn’t quite certain how he would ever repay them, and he wasn’t certain how he felt about it, owing a debt that large. He hadn’t expected to see more of Eva and her family after that dinner. To him helping Eva out that alley had been a natural thing, something he would have done regardless. 

But the Camacho’s hadn’t seen it that way. They had warmed up his clothing and offered Steve something to wear during that time from her brothers. The trousers had been too large and long enough so he had to roll them up. At least he had his own belt to keep them from dropping off. The shirts had felt like circus tents, but it was wonderful to have something that didn’t stick to his back. 

The dinner that Mrs Camacho had made, Monica, had been one of the if not the best soup that Steve ever had in his life. That with the little bit of spice that she had added in the vegetable soup that made Steve cough violently when he accidently had choked on it (all the Camacho’s had laughed at him as he turned as red as a beet with watering eyes, before Bernardo had slammed his broad hand on Steve’s back and loosened it for him) had chased the chill out of his bones. 

It had been a wonderful evening, and Steve had found himself enjoying the time spent with them. They had shared coffee, and Monica snuck down to the shop to bring up a packet of cookies for them all to share. After that they had played a game of cards until eleven in the evening, coming to the stunning realisation that they had spent at least six hours surrounded by the dining table. 

Monica had tossed Steve’s clothing in the wash, claiming that he couldn’t go home with half damp clothes that had blood stains all over it, and encouraged him to borrow the clothes that he was wearing for the day. He could return them the following day. And Eva’s brother Jorge did give Steve a ride home. 

And true to his word, Steve returned the borrowed clothes the very next day in the afternoon, once he had the chance to wash them himself. He hadn’t thought that he’d see much of the Camacho’s after that, but he stayed for another game of cards with Eva’s other brother Joaquin. It followed another invitation for dinner, and soon enough Steve was coming over once a week. 

During the weekdays he still went about and tried to get a new job, but had little luck. Once he lamented about it one evening, Bernado told him to come by the shop the following morning. Ever so polite, Steve did. And that was how he wound up working in the shop. Despite his age Bernado still had the strength of a bear, and with Joaquin back at school after the summer and Jorge working nights at the fish market he could use an extra hand in the shop. So Bernado worked in the back and storage, running deliveries and picking them up while Steve found himself manning the store. Stocking the shelves, cleaning and working the register. 

And Steve owed the world to the Camacho’s for that. They paid him what they could, and Steve never once complained about the job that had come gift wrapped to him while he figured out what he wanted to do. He helped Joaquin through school, and at the same time tried to figure out what path to study. Steve loved art, but at twenty-eight he finally accepted that art wouldn’t pay his bills, and that he would have to learn a useful skill. He just wasn’t quite sure on how to incorporate art to some level into it. 

Monica attempted to teach Steve some Spanish every day, with mixed results. More often than not she would laugh at his pronunciation and accent, before telling him that he did a great job. A little bit in the morning before she went to work, and a little bit in the evening as Steve was about to leave for the evening. 

But Eva, Eva he spent the most time with. Steve would often turn up early just to walk her to the hospital where she worked, and would walk her back as often as he could. To ward of robbers, he would joke to her and she would throw her head back and laugh. He found that he quite enjoyed her company, she was a happy, cheerful woman. Beautiful, with those mesmerizing eyes of her and that hair. He felt at times, even a little bit shy to walk beside her, but she always managed to carry the conversation on her own. And it didn’t take long for a wonderful friendship to emerge in between them. 

The problem, Steve found, was when he began sneaking looks at her when she was helping Joaquin with his school work. Or when she was helping her mother prepare whatever dish she was making for the evening. And it didn’t help when she at times looked up to him, and smiled. Steve often felt himself turn red and carried on with his work. He was a grown man, he shouldn’t act like such a child, Steve thought. And somewhere in the back of his head he could hear Bucky laughing. Bucky encouraging him to go up and talk to her, and if “You won’t then I will.”

Except he wasn’t there to begin with. 

December was a dreadful month, one with more rain than snow. The shop had been calm most of the day so Steve had little to do. And like every friday Monica had invited Steve to stay for dinner. Like every Friday, he accepted and offered her to do the dishes. Like every Friday, Monica declined the offer. 

Bernado was out running his last errand of the day, and Steve had seated himself in the living room of the Camacho’s, facing the doorway to the kitchen where Monica and Eva were preparing the casserole. Drawing pad in hand, Steve occasionally snuck a look at Eva before adding more lines to his drawing pad. Attempting to catch the beauty that she radiated from just existing, trying to capture her movements and her way of being. 

It was an enthralling job, drawing him in just as much as Eva’s eyes did. And he found himself so focused that he didn’t even notice when Joaquin had crawled closer on the couch, peering over Steve’s shoulder and interrupting the intimate art of creation. “Stalker.” Joaquin whispered in Steve’s ear, resulting in him flinching away and Joaquin bursting out with laughter. 

“Jo!” Steve exclaimed annoyed, pulling the drawing pad up to his chest and moved to swat at the youngest of the Camacho children. Joaquin only threw up his arm in defence, giggled and shifted beside Steve, pulling the drawing pad down so he could see it. Steve let him. 

“That’s really good you know? Pretty.” Joaquin admired, tilting his head a little bit to the side as he observed the drawings of his sister. “Does she know that you’re drawing her like that?” He asked with a mischievous little smirk and pulled the pad out of Steve’s hands fully, flipping through the papers. 

“No.” Steve admitted. “Art is better when the subject doesn’t know they’re being drawn.”

“Sounds creepy Estavan.” Joaquin whistled and paused at a drawing of the Green-wood Cemetery and squinted a little bit. Then he handed the drawing pad with a shrug back. “You should tell her.” 

“Are you?” Steve closed the drawing pad and put it down on the table in front of them. Joaquin shook his head. 

“Nah, I’m not the one drawing her. Not my thing to tell.” He stretched out his arms and his legs, taking up more space in the couch and looked at his mother and sister. He pouted with his lips, which Steve had come to realise meant that he was thinking over something. He then looked up to Steve, eyes just as dark as his sister’s looking at him, but not as mesmerizing. “You fancy my sister Estevan?” 

“What?” Steve raised an eyebrow to Joaquin. The answer, or lack thereof seemed to please the other. Joaquin popped up his elbow in the couch, and that charming smile of his that had drawn in so many girls to the shop with him after school (Steve had quickly learned to turn a blind eye to it) was flashed to him. 

“Do you, Steven Rogers. Fancy my sister?” He asked again, purposely keeping a low tone so the women in the kitchen wouldn’t overhear him. Steve scoffed and looked away, unfortunately all he could look at was Monica and Eva. Joaquin calling him Steven had been unsettling enough, and the question even more. He had thought about it, and he knew that he did. But it had been a line that Steve hadn’t wanted to cross. The Camacho’s had been so good to him that it seemed disrespectful to ask Eva out. Not to mention that both Joaquin and Jorge were strong and muscular young men, and Steve didn’t fancy getting a beating of them, along with the disappointment that would most likely follow of Bernado. 

“You do!” Joaquin hissed to Steve, jaw falling open a little bit as he looked to Eva. The excitement only made him seem as young as he was, and he went from looking like a man, to the nineteen year old kid he truly was. Steve didn’t say anything and just scratched his neck, feeling the tips of his ears warm up a little bit. Twenty-eight years old, he reminded himself, he was the adult of the conversation, and he should act like it. 

But it was hard, and he felt like he had for years besides Bucky, preferring to look at the cute ladies from a distance while Bucky went ahead with all his bravado and asked them to dance. Joaquin reminded him of Bucky in that aspect. 

“You should ask her out.” Joaquin then stated so matter of factly, that Steve found it difficult to understand him. 

“Pardon?” He asked again, looking down to the mischievous teenager. 

“You fancy her, she likes you, I like you, Jorge likes you, mama likes you. And papa likes you to, you’re enslaved in the shop. Hell, you’re practically family now. Go for it, it’s not like you got anything to lose.” 

Steve hummed in response, thinking that he just about had everything to lose, and that Joaquin saw life through the glasses of a child. 

“Eva!” Joaquin shouted out. Steve winced and knew instantly what was going to happen. “Come over here, Estevan wants to ask you something!” Joaquin called out, clapped Steve on his knee and pulled himself up from the couch and with a bounce in his step, went into the kitchen. Monica smacked her son on his chest and instantly began scolding him. Steve couldn’t make out the full extent of it, but he had a feeling it was about shouting indoors. 

Eva dried of her hands and came out into the living room. Her hair free and hanging past her shoulders. “Si?” 

Steve licked his lips, shifting uncomfortably in the couch and becoming painfully aware that he had never once asked a girl out in his life. He had been on dates, dates where he had been set up, double dates where he hadn’t even known who he was going to see because he hadn’t arranged it in the first place. The reality that this was a very stressful event and milestone, was slowly dawning on him. 

“Do you uhm, maybe…” Steve trailed off, watching that smile dawn upon Eva’s features and he became lost of what he wanted to say in the first place. He suddenly wished that he had something to toy with and keep his hands occupied. He cursed Joaquin for setting him into this position, and he cursed himself for having begun the question. He couldn’t leave it hanging now. What had been started had to be finished. 

“Do you maybe want to go out with me?” He asked her, shutting his eyes and hating himself for sounding so squeaky as he did. And when the silence followed, it seemed like forever. But when he looked at her, it seemed like no time had gone by at all. 

“Yeah, yeah I think that would be fun.” Eva smirked. “Tomorrow? We can go to the Expo, I actually have never gone. I think that’d be fun.” 

Steve was baffled by the response, but a weight of a thousand tonnes had dropped of his shoulders, and he was smiling widely enough to make his cheeks hurt. “Yes. we can go to the expo, I’ll show you around.” 

Just then Monica called out for Eva in Spanish, and this time Steve could make out enough to understand that dinner was ready and she was to wake Jorge up. She winked at him as she turned. “Six Steven, I’ll be waiting, don’t you dare be late!” She called out, earning a scolding herself from Monica. 

“I won’t!” Steve called after, laughing as Monica lamented if anyone in the apartment even respected her wishes.


	9. Chapter 9

1947, March - 

At least they didn’t keep him tied to the slab anymore. Bucky had somewhat of a room, he wouldn’t go as far as call it a cell. It had four walls and a door, and that was it. No window to look outside, and his only source of light was the bit that streamed in from the hallway through the bars of the door. He didn’t have a bed, and all he had to occupy himself with was to look at all the things written and scratched into the walls. 

The first night he had spent in the room he had shuddered at the thought of how the previous prisoners had scratched into the walls if he couldn’t find a single thing in the room. Now, what had to be weeks later, months, even years, Bucky had stopped reading it. It had blended into the stone like a fucked up wallpaper. 

But the room didn’t mean heaven. 

They kept him there, sometimes for days at a time without even bothering to come and check up on him. Or maybe they were toying with him and turned of the lights for an hour at a time, to make him believe that days had gone by. Sometimes they fed him, sometimes they starved him. Sometimes they wouldn’t let him sleep for days on end, slamming batons against the bars of the door to wake him up. Or throwing ice cold water over him just for the sake of it. 

Somewhere along the line they had given him a new name, even if Bucky had never given him his. The more he said his serial number the easier it became to respond with it, no matter what they did to him. But the guards wouldn’t accept it, and through his time with them he had come to learn more German. 

Gefangener fünf sechs acht neun acht. That was what they had come to call him. Prisoner five-six-eight-nine-eight. 

Bucky had rejected it at first, and had watched how the other prisoners had adapted into taking this new number as their serial number. There were only a handful of them, men wasting away alongside him, bruises on their faces from that chair. Bruises on their legs and ribs from trying to shield themselves from the guards. Bruises on their arms in nasty purple, green and blue from the injection. They had started out as fourteen when they had been moved to this facility, and now there were eight left. Bucky didn’t know what had happened to the other six, and he found that he didn’t want to know either. 

And at times they dragged him off to Zola, strapped him to that chair and every time he tried to fight against. But every time he got the needle with the thick blue liquid in his arm and every time it burned. And every time they scorched his brain with electricity. White and powerful, tensing up every muscle in his body to the point where it felt like his bones would crack and break. 

It hurt and he wanted to scream, but at the same time it didn’t hurt. It just drained him. And by the time Zola was done the guards had to drag him back to his room where he then slept, and slept, and slept, until they threw water at him. But it had made it hard to think, and when he woke up he found himself getting increasingly more disoriented. 

Thinking became a difficult task, and many times over Bucky felt that it would be easier to comply, just do as they wanted and accept his fate. But he didn’t want that, he didn’t want to give anyone else any pleasure over having him in their control like that. He didn’t want to give Zola that satisfaction, who had stopped referring to him as Sergeant, but as Gefangenen fünf-sechs-acht-neun-acht. 

It would be easier, Bucky thought. Though he had a feeling, that the moment he stopped putting up a fight, the moment he would come to accept his situation and his surrounding, that that would be the moment when he’d die. That would be when they would find no more use for him or that would be when his own body would betray him and give him an eternal rest. 

So he endured, he endured the water and he endured the noise, he endured watching his fellow prisoners not get up and die, without ever knowing their names beyond their newfound serial numbers. He fought, and he got needles after needles shoved in his arm with blue and it burned every single time. And he endured the chair, which made him sink through his legs and feel sick to his core and made him sleep. 

He endured their torment and their games, he endured the soldiers shouting at him that he wasn’t a soldier, that he wasn’t a hero, that he wasn’t fighting for freedom, he was fighting for destruction. Humanity wouldn’t survive with freedom, it would be chaos, they were the rescuers, Hydra was there to save the world, and he had come to ruin it, and of course he had to be able to see that?

And for that, he was the scum of the earth, he was the villain, he was the one trying to stop the righteous ones from acting. The Allied, they were just a symbol of the chaos that would come. Why would these countries be allowed their freedom. Bucky didn’t want to believe it, and he tried not to listen to it. He tried to cover his ears and cower away, but they would only beat him for doing so. 

They fought for one another, did they not? Hydra would tell him. It wasn’t just Germans, it wasn’t just Nazi’s, they had become Hydra, subtly like they had shed a skin. And The Allied to, they had lied to him. Where were they? His heroes, the men he trusted, the men who he had put his life in their hands? Who had taken it and done with it as they pleased, a voice whispered in the back of his head. 

Why hadn’t they come and rescued him? Why hadn’t he been freed? They didn’t care, it had been years, they said, and all that he was, was gefangenen fünf-sechs-acht-neun-acht. He wasn’t who he once had been anymore. They had discarded him, so discard the allies as well, they would say in the middle of the night, as they held their speeches and walked up and down the corridor. 

No English, only German. He had come to learn enough to understand them. 

Bucky tried not to listen to them. But thinking about anything else, locking them out when he had been put in the chair and they had fried his brain and given him a headache to see stars made it difficult. His brain protested against thinking of anything, thinking of memories, and it was so much easier to just listen what was being said. 

Somewhere along the line, he had stopped dreaming. He tried to think back of Brooklyn, of his family, of Steve and of Dot and that fucking dog that the baker had. But the images that he conjured up in his mind just didn’t seem to be quite right. There was something off with them even if he couldn’t put his finger on it. Cloudy and hazy, like the corners of a photograph that had become frayed and torn. 

So when he dreamt again, it was terrifying. It was heavy, thick suffocating dreams of thousand yard stares, of monsters he didn't even know he could come up with. Of flashes of the chair at the end of a corridor and it coming closer every time the light flickered. The words of the Hydra guards whispered in the background and Zola with red eyes and blood dripping from his mouth. Of his fellow prisoners falling to the ground, turning green and blue and mouldy and skeletal as they withered away in an instant, leaving nothing but bones and eyes staring at him. 

And when he woke, he was shivering with fear and… and something else. His stomach turned and he threw up, flashes of cold and heat being undecided who would get to be the dominant temperature and figments of his imagination playing in front of his eyes in his cell. And the stench, the stench that wouldn’t go away and as he looked to his arm where Zola had been injecting the syringes, the vitamines, the blue, and saw that it was rotting, festering. And he retched again. 

So when the calling came, Bucky barely managed to get to his feet. And when he was tied to the chair, dozing in and out of reality while Zola’s fingers gloved fingers ghosted over the wounds on his arm. 

“Wir werden es ausziehen.” Zola said lightly, without a care in the world. “Starte den stuhl.” 

The words barely got translated in his mind before the plate came down over one half of his face. We will take it off, Zola had said, and the chair fried him again. 

Next came darkness. The incoherent kind, dark and heavy. Bucky didn’t feel a presence, didn’t feel himself in it. And yet he rested, he rested in the calm of it. It was to refreshing, to peaceful. And when he woke up he was back on a slab and not in his room. He saw a window, and he saw the warm sun. It had become summer. And he slept. 

It was when Bucky woke that he felt something was missing. Felt some part of him was broken. And when he looked to his left, his arm wasn’t there anymore. Stupidly, he envisioned himself raising the hand that wasn’t there anymore, and twisted the hand in front of his eyes. But there was nothing there to see. And he screamed. He screamed and cried at the loss of a limb even if it had been toxic and rotting and killing him. He wanted it back, he wanted it back even if he didn’t want to die. 

It was his arm, you were only given one left arm in your life and you had to take care of it. And in that instant, in that short instant a life flashed in front of his eyes where he saw himself as a cripple, where he saw himself like he had seen the Vets from the first world war, trying to make a living while he wasn’t whole, trying to meet someone, but who would look at what he was missing and scowl. He envisioned himself trying to live a normal life, even if he was held prisoner. 

“You lived. I am pleased you did, would have become terribly disappointed.” Zola had snuck up on him. Quietly like the weasel that he was. A satisfied smirk on his features and that fucking clipboard that Bucky wanted to kick out of the others hands and slam it into his nose. 

“What the fuck did you do?!” Bucky screamed at him, allowing Zola for the first time to hear other words than begging. Bucky had broken his silence, and told Zola that he had a voice that served more than one purpose. “What the fuck did you do where the fuck is my arm what the fuck did you do you fucker!” The words and curses spilled past his lips, anger from only god knew how long finally spilling over. 

“It was infected.” Zola stated flatly, not phased by Bucky’s anger or choice of words. “You would have died had we not removed it. Do not worry, we are pleased you’ve given us this opportunity, and we are pleased to see that you did not die. You have recovered well, we only removed it yesterday.” With his pen, Zola lifted up a bit of the fabric of Bucky’s cut off sleeve, smacked his lips and that satisfied smirk became unbearable. Bucky tried to jerk away, but the straps prevented him from moving. “If I recall correctly, you asked not to die. Should we have let you die?” 

Bucky didn’t respond to the question, uncertain if it was a trick question or a genuine one. The tone that Zola used was stable, and didn’t reveal any emotion for Bucky to go off. And even so he didn’t want to give the little man more satisfaction then he already had received. Bucky huffed, and tried to jerk away again, but all he did was hurt his side and became more aware of the throbbing pain in his shoulder and arm… no, just his shoulder. His arm wasn’t there any longer. 

“It will be a fine addition to you, when we’re done with it. Our scientists are nearly finished, but I believe we’ll hold of giving it to you just yet. You’re not ready. You’re not reliable, prisoner five-six-eight-nine-eight. And we require you to be reliable.” Zola looked to his clipboard again, his eyebrows furrowed and he made a note on his papers. 

Bucky felt a sinking feeling in his gut, unsure of how to take what the other had said. He wasn’t curious, but fear pushed him to ask. Fear made him want to know what they were going to do. They had already removed one arm, what was to stop them from doing more? Absolutely nothing, Bucky couldn’t even work himself free from the slab. 

And no one had come for him either, the german voice whispered in the back of his head. 

He was all alone without even knowing where he was. What year it was. What day it was. He hadn’t had a friendly interaction since… Since Gabe trying to keep him up, since Morita and Pinkerton and Dugan and Junior and… and he was hit with the realisation that they probably were dead. 

“Your recovery is absolutely remarkable.” Zola marveled at him, peering in the sleeve of his jumper again, tapping his pen, making a hard, metallic sound. Bucky began to breathe rapidly, and once more imagined his arm beside him, he imagined looking at it and then he realised that they had probably thrown it away, thrown it into an oven and burnt it and all that would be left would be charred bones and he couldn’t breathe. 

He had been scared during his stay with them, but he had never truly felt terrified, he realised up until that moment. He had never, truly felt as violated and abused as he did now. He had gone to sleep whole, and he had woken up taken apart like a fucking puzzle. 

“So it works, slowly but it works.” Zola muttered to himself and walked to his work station while Bucky desperately tried to flex fingers that no longer where there and yelled, screamed with pain and with sorrow. Screamed at what was no more. 

Zola came back around him to his other side, pressing his small cold hand against Bucky’s arm, holding him steady and for the first time Bucky didn’t even feel the needle being pushed into his skin. And he didn’t feel when Zola injected him with that blue liquid… paste, whatever it was. 

They let him back to his room, no, his cell. It had become a cell now, a few hours later. It must have been a few hours. And the first thing that Bucky did was pull of his jumper and look at his shoulder, and saw the metal plating that built into his shoulder and became aware of how it intruded into his body. Suddenly he could feel how it burned into him, broke into him and tried to claim his body as its own. And he screamed and tried to claw it back out. 

He bled and sobbed and bled some more. They doused him with water to shut him up which only sent him into a new frenzied panic. He only stopped because the guards came in, sick of his wailing and brought down the butt of the gun against his head. 

When he woke the scratches around the metal by his shoulder were already healing. He couldn’t speak, or maybe he had just forgotten how to use his voice. He could have began scratching at it again, he could have tried to claw it out of him again, but instead he pressed an imaginary arm against his chest and rocked back and forth, shivering from the cold. 

Bucky couldn’t bring himself to think and just stared into the wall. 

When the guards came to do their rounds. He stood up, still cradling the arm that was no longer (but he could feel it, he could feel how he pressed it so hard into his stomach, he could feel how his fingers started to tingle) and turned to the doors. He felt dizzy, both from the hit to his head and from standing up. 

They stopped outside his door, and spoke in a loud and booming voice that almost made his ears hurt. “Gefangene fünf-sechs-acht-neun-acht, melde dich an!”

Bucky shut his eyes, swallowed thickly and spoke on a low tone. “Gefangene fünf-sechs-acht-neun-acht, ich melde mich an.” And he wondered if the war would ever end, and he would become Bucky Barnes again and get to go home.


	10. Chapter 10

1948, June -

“That looks so fucking weird.” Steve mused, neck aching a little bit from the angle he kept while looking at Eva’s round belly. He saw her skin sway, push a bit to the side and then Steve could imagine the baby inside of her flip over. Eva laughed.

“Look weird? Imagine how it feels, I’ve got that inside of me I’ll remind you.” She didn’t look up from her book, resting on the top of her stomach as she flipped a page over. Her nightgown was light, and with its help she seemed to survive the summer heat far better than Steve himself was. The heat was boiling him alive, but it barely seemed to phase her. 

“Yes yes alright, you win.” Steve teased her and pulled himself further up their bed, popping his elbow up underneath him and smiled to her. Smiled to his wife and kissed her on her cheek. “I love you.” He whispered against her skin before pressing his lips against her shoulders, smiling contently to himself. 

“I know, you tell me every day.” Eva mused, tilting her chin up a little bit and squinted at her book, mouthing the words she was reading along. It revealed to Steve that he was disturbing her, and that she had reached a particularly good section in her chapter. A part that enthralled her so much that she couldn’t even break second for a single second to tell him to be quiet. 

So instead, he told it to himself and rolled onto his back, folding his hands on his stomach and kicked the blanket of his legs. He wouldn’t need it again this night, and Eva could hog it all he wanted. He looked at her, and he looked at her round stomach that showed the world what their love could create. Steve was absolutely ecstatic at the idea of becoming a father. And he would admit without shame that he had cried when she first had told him. 

He fumbled with his silver wedding ring as he watched her stomach, silver, not gold. He had wanted to get a gold one but hadn’t been able to afford it, so he had settled for silver despite what everyone told him. He could replace it at a later time, and Monica had happily given him the ring of her own mother so he could ask Eva. But when the time and chances had come for him to change the ring up to a gold one, it had felt wrong. The right ring was silver now, and it became their own little story. 

Steve could only marvel at how much he owed Joaquin for giving him that little push. He had spent most of the time at the expo feeling awkward, not quite knowing what to say and what to do during their date. Eva had just questioned him why he was being so nervous? They knew each other and they could relax and Steve could try to win her a gadget at one of the little competitions that the expo had. Steve had tried but failed, so instead Eva kept their tickets as memorabilia from their first date. 

They didn’t kiss then, but Steve felt a lot bolder and asked her out again when he had brought her back to the Camacho apartment. She had obliged, however they didn’t get the chance to go out until the Christmas Holidays had gone by. Still in the spirit however, they had gone and seen It’s a Wonderful Life. Steve had hated the film, but Eva had liked it. 

And like a boy and girl of the age of eight, they had held hands during the film. That evening Steve had also dared himself to kiss Eva for the very first time. After that everything had gone by so fast, and yet not fast enough. Barely four months into dating he had proposed, to which she had said yes. By the time that summer had come by they had gotten married, with Joaquin and Jorge as his best men. 

Steve had invited the Buchanans, hating himself a little bit for slowly losing touch with them over the past five years since Bucky had passed and they had his funeral. Only Rebecca had come with her parents, Bucky’s other sisters having scattered over the country with marriages of their own. And much to his surprise, Rebecca had brought along an adorable little girl in her arms named Jessica, and her own husband. She told him she was sorry she hadn’t sent out an invitation to her own wedding, but that she had eloped and no one had gotten one. Steve only told her that he was happy for her. 

The night before Steve was to say his vows, George had taken Steve out for a bit of wisdom he wanted to share on from a married man, to a soon to be married man. He had understood it already then, that George was telling him these things, the little magics that would make a successful marriage (don’t go to bed angry with one another, if you go out drinking with friends one night of the week one had to dedicate another week for the love of your life and surprise her, buy her flowers once every three months at least and never on the same days but different to always surprise her, and the list went on and on) because he wouldn’t get the chance to share them with his own son. 

And Steve was grateful for it, having grown up without a father in his life. But in that split moment of that evening, he had felt like he had a father. 

It had been a small wedding, and the after party was held at the Camacho’s. With Monica and her four sisters having prepared all the meals for everyone, and Jorge fawning over little Jessica. Joaquin had driven them both on the back of the pick up truck to Steve’s apartment that was now theirs and everything had just been perfect. 

In December she told him she was pregnant, and now it was a blistering hot June evening with a little bit more than two months to go before Steve would be able to hold their child for the first time. He looked from Eva’s round belly to her expression which had softened, the tension had eased from her brows and the interesting bit of the book was over. Safe zone to talk. 

“If it’s a boy.” Steve began, noticing that she was nearing the end of her chapter so he paused. She finished off her last few lines and looked at him. “I’d like to name him Joseph. After my father.”

“Joseph.” Eva repeated, trying out the name on the tip of her tongue. They hadn’t spoken much about names, Steve had brought it up in the beginning of the pregnancy but Eva had asked him to stop. She wanted to wait until they were nearing the end, and called their baby little bean from then on. Steve had respected that. It was only last week that Eva had paused when she had been reading on the back of the milk package, and asked him if it was a little bit morbid to name her child after another child that had gone missing just because she liked the name. Steve had told her it was, and she had hummed and returned to her breakfast. 

“I like it. And if it’s a girl?” She dog eared her book, which Steve still couldn’t forgive her for and put it on her nightstand. 

“Could name her Sara, after my mother?” He suggested, rolling onto his side again to look at her better, reaching out with his fingers to stroke her arm.

“Sara is also nice.” She mused, looking down to her stomach. “I also like Maria, after my grandmother.” 

“Well, I only see one solution to this.” Steve teased her, grinning like the stubborn fool he was as he waited for her to take the bait. And she did looking at him, one eyebrow raised. “We are going to have to get more children.” Eva snorted in response. 

“Oh really now? How many did you have in mind?” 

“As many as you’ll let me have.” Steve answered her without missing a beat, taking her hand and brought her fingers to his lips. Eva rolled her eyes in response. “I got many names lined up, Joseph, Sara, Buchanan.” Eva laughed when she heard that, Steve looked at her, scandalized. “What’s wrong with Buchanan?” 

“Everything Steve listen to it, Buchanan. No, i’m not naming any future children Buchanan Steve, that boy will never hear the end of it.” She smiled sweetly at him and cupped his cheek. “Look, I know that the name means a lot to you, being from your friend at all. But I will not accept Buchanan so you can nickname our future child Bucky, after your friend. Would he have liked that?”

“Actually, he would have found it a blast.” Steve huffed at first, defensively. “But I see your point.” He admitted against his will and rolled back onto his back, moving both of his hands behind his head. He could see Bucky loving it, having a little mini me that wasn’t quite like him. A child he could hand back and be the fun uncle to. That could have played with Bucky’s own five children in a different life. But he could also hear Bucky tell him in the back of his head “Why the fuck would you name your kid Buchanan?!” out loud. 

“Was that actually his first name?” She coaxed him, moving further down in the bed with a bit more difficulty than Steve had done despite his back.

“No. James.”

“See? You can name him James instead, how about that?” She suggested as a middleway. “James is a nice name.” 

Steve wanted to say that Bucky had hated James, and had been Bucky since the day that he was born. Steve could remember him saying once that being called James felt like being an entirely different person, and he could almost feel his personality shift to this James, this person that he was not. Steve had called bullshit. 

“Joseph, James and Bernado if we have boys, Maria, Monica and Sara if we have girls. Because I’m drawing the line at three, three is a perfect number.” 

“Joseph, James, Bernado. Maria, Monica, Sara.” Steve repeated like Eva had done minutes earlier, tasting the words on his tongue to see if he liked them. Mentally he repeated the names over, but added his surname to them at the end. Perfect fit, all three of them. And his chest grew warm again. He was going to be a father. 

So he looked at his beautiful wife with her eyes from space. “Yes, those names will be perfect.” Eva smirked and kissed him on his cheek. 

“Now be a dear and get your pregnant wife a glass of water.” She told him, patted him on his chest and rolled onto her back. Steve did as he was told, and stretched out on his way to the kitchen. “We’ll have to discuss godparents when you’re back!” 

“Well that’s easy isn’t it?” Steve called out from the kitchen, got her the glass of water and padded back into the bedroom. He handed it and Eva took one big gulp straight away. “Your mother and father, I don’t really have anyone on my side we could ask.” It was a lonely life, but Steve had gotten used to it. Eva shook her head in protest. “No? I would have thought you’d want them.”

“I do, but I am also somewhat of a realist.” With a bit of effort the glass was put on her nightstand, on top of her book to make matters worse. Steve wanted to whine and imagined the ring that would be on the cover. “I love my parents, but the whole idea of godfathers is so they look after the children when we aren’t there anymore. And my parents, they’ve earned their golden years so to speak. God forbid if something happens to us, they shouldn’t have to spend those golden years looking after their grandchildren even if they’d love to. But there will be a time where they aren’t here anymore, and that might well be during the time where our children are still kids. So no, someone younger.”

“Okay.” Steve sat down at the edge of the bed, pulling out Eva’s foot from under the blanket and started massaging her. “Did you have anyone in mind?” He asked curiously. 

“Jorge will settle down soon with that girl he’s seen, he’s started to talk you know. So I think he should be godfather, that way they will wind up in a family environment.”

“And Wendy as godmother?” Steve raised an eyebrow at her, finding it hard to believe. While Eva hadn’t outright said she hated Jorge’s girlfriend, she had made it clear that there was something about the young woman she didn’t like. Steve had asked her about it once and she had just shrugged, saying that she just didn’t like how Wendy acted like she was a doll. But Steve had a feeling there was more to it than that.

Eva snorted and shook her head, but then frowned as the thought came over her. “Let’s just make my cousin in California, no one can argue against that, and she can’t argue against Jorge.” She looked up with a content smirk. 

“Petty, I like it.” Steve mused to her, being a little bit to amused at her childish way of being about the whole ordeal. He had no protests, he liked Jorge and he liked her cousin, even if he only had met her twice. And seeing he had no family left or friends, he had no one else to offer as alternative. Ever since getting to know the Camacho’s his circle of friends had grown, but it had grown because of the Camacho’s, and not because he had gotten to know more people himself. Maybe that would happen in September. 

“It’s not petty.” Eva pulled her foot out of his hands and gave him a slight push in his chest with it. He laughed at her. “It’s a matter of fact.” She huffed, but Steve could see she wasn’t angry with him. 

“Okay love.” He shifted further up the bed and kissed her again. “Now, does my wonderful wife want anything else before we head to bed in this boiling hell?”


	11. Chapter 11

1959, September -

The first time they had put him into cryo, the prisoner had fought. He had fought and he had given them hell. Because he understood them now, and he had heard them when they had said that they couldn’t put him under again, that his system would burn through the narcotics and the anesthetic. So the prisoner had tried to use that against his advantage because he did not want to go into a freezer. 

Unfortunately, they had also been prepared at him fighting against. Still. He had managed to jam a syringe in the side of a doctor and kept shanking him before he finally broke it off in the man. In another life he wouldn’t have killed so violently, he wouldn’t have killed, and had tried to avoid it to his best even if he was at war. 

But in the Hydra facility there were no laws. And if it meant one doctor less to poke and prod at him then the better. The prisoner just found it a shame that it hadn’t been Zola, that he couldn’t give him a fragment of a taste of his own medicine but much faster and much harder. 

By the time that they woke him up, or thawed him as he thought about it. No one spoke German anymore. And he was lost in linguistic limbo amongst harsh sounds and deep grunts. 

Russian, he learned eventually, and Russians he learned next, were just as hard as their German Hydra counter parts. The third thing he learned was zaklyuchennyy pyaht-shest-vohseeaym-dyehveht-vohseeaym. Prisoner five-six-eight-nine-eight. How fitting. 

The rest came quickly after that. Russian, and any language came quickly if it was all you ever heard. And it wasn’t the only language they bashed ruthlessly into his head. Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Arabic, Hindi, and even fucking French which the Prisoner always had thought was to posh for him. 

But remembering the languages was harder, every time they dragged him to that chair and blasted his mind with it, chunks would go missing and he would have to learn all over again. He was beaten for not remembering them, and he was beaten for remembering the wrong things. 

Brooklyn was a distant memory, long and forgotten of something the prisoner didn’t think of anymore. Knowing that he would never get to see it again. That he would never walk those streets and meet those people again. What were their names? Freda? Freddie? There had been someone named like that, Wendy? No, Freda was the woman who brought him his dinner, thin lipped and sharp features and cold eyes. He had known someone back in Brooklyn, back on… the prisoner could picture the street, but he couldn’t remember what it was named. 

Ya podchinyayus.

And then they put him under again. They woke him up, they put him under, they woke him up, put him in the chair and blasted more scrambled pieces away in his mind. They put him back under, they woke him up and put new pieces in there. Spanish, Chinese, Japanese. They handed him a gun that wasn’t loaded and made him disassemble it, made him assemble it and disassemble it, and assemble it and disassemble it until it felt like his fingers would bleed. But they wouldn’t, not anymore so it seemed. 

They forced him to eat a vile paste. Injected him with more vitamins and gave him food, actual, solid food that he scoffed down and they made him stronger. And that came at such an alarming rate that they had to put him back under. Then they woke him up again and the biggest man that the prisoner had ever seen (or so he believed, so it felt, his gut told him that it was) and the man beat him to the ground. Over and over again while shouting orders at him. While another uniformed man stood beside him and hit the Prisoner with a horse whip at every wrong step he took. Until the prisoner danced the dance and knocked the man down. 

Yo cumplo.

They woke him up one day, and for two grueling weeks they sat him down in front of a man who spoke in such a dreamy voice, that drifted the prisoner into a different world. That planted a seed deep within him that would lay root, not a tree, not a flower, but a weed that would root itself in all his organs and nerves and muscles and barely functioning mind and took over his control and being. 

And from that day on they just had to say one word and he would feel his eyes roll up and drop to the ground. Not asleep, not dead, but unconscious and no longer a risk. Not now when he was stronger, not when he took down that man, not when the uniformed man was teaching him how to dance. Not now when they were feeding him, and they put him back under. And every time they put him into cryo, another little bit that had become loosened by the chair, fell of and sank into the ocean, never to be pulled back and never to be remembered by the prisoner. He never had a reason to. 

Ich erfülle.

They woke him up, and the prisoner found that he had two arms when he looked to his side. Metal plates that whirred and buzzed and he could feel it, he could feel how they shifted and adjusted himself and he could move the fingers that were supposed to be his. Replacing something that was long lost, something he had managed to live without for so long and now he was being given this beautiful gift. And he used it. 

The doctor was to close, but the arm worked to well, it reacted to the Prisoner’s every instinct and want and it knew him better than the prisoner knew himself. So the fingers enclosed around the man's throat and they pressed. Taking joy in watching the panic, hearing how the man tried to take a desperate breath, enjoying the opportunity to take another life. And then the other men said that blasted word that made his eyes roll up and his muscles go slack. Including the metal, that whirred and buzzed and relaxed, letting go of the man’s throat and he was unconscious again. 

Wǒ zūnshǒu. 

They make him dance. It’s not difficult, he is fueled by anger still and is given the chance to work it out. They teach him so many ways of dancing, and he gets knocked to the floor more often than he wants to. The arm is welcomed, something instinctive within him that takes control like he always has had two arms. But the weight is odd and his balance is different. And they make him stronger, they have him fight with weapons, with knives and with his fists. 

And when they finally wipe that last bit of anger from the prisoner, leaving him only with a drive and with occasional dreams, they begin entrusting him with guns. Over time, he’s grown obedient, over time the prisoner has taken comfort in not making any decisions, on being told what to do and how to do it. And in the end the prisoner pushes forward. They stop referring to him as prisoner. And one day they tell him that he is now The Asset, and must respond to the Asset. So The Asset tells them that he complies. 

Obbedisco.

It goes into cryo voluntarily. It goes into the chair voluntarily even if it knows that all that follows is pain. Pain and confusion and more frayed threads that are being pulled apart more and more. The Asset can’t remember a time outside the compound. It doesn’t even know what is out of the building where it is being housed. It doesn’t ask, it doesn’t have to. It is being taken care off. And it has no care in the world. It just does what it is being told. 

It fights those who It is told, and It fights better every time. It becomes fast and efficient and deadly. It doesn’t argue, doesn’t drop comments. It does the tests that they put him through. And if they tell The Asset to get on the treadmill and stand still while they put patches with wires on his chest, on his arms and back and legs, then It stands still when they do it. And when they tell The Asset to run, It runs and doesn’t stop until it is being told to. And it can run for hours, and eventually for three days before It’s body gives out. 

Ma supun. 

It drinks what is being served without asking. The energy juices, the sugar water, the new concoction that It is being served. It eats the controlled portions that they give It. Designed to keep him at peak performance, to make him strong and to make him durable. They sit him down, and they stamp more and more information into Its mind. Hydra is good, you are good, you belong to Hydra. You will be the weapon that works in the shadows to take down those who are enemies of Hydra. 

And It tells them that It complies. It studies, it learns, it perfects the languages that have always been laying in It’s mind. It discovers it has a natural skill in English. It is easy to fill It’s head with all these new lessons (Boxing, Taekwondo, Physics, Chemistry, Flying, SIG Sauer P220, M67, It’s arm, climbing, moving like a cat, orienting itself, surveillance equipment, the architectural structure of buildings) when there is nothing else in It’s head that is competing for space.

Utaet. 

It still dreams of things that it can’t explain. But It doesn’t talk about it. It has handlers, and not friends. You don’t befriend The Asset, and The Asset is okay with that. The Asset is a weapon, and doesn’t feel the need for connections like that. It just needs someone to feed It, and someone to tell It what to do. They learn it a new routine, to be applied when they use the Asset, the uniformed man says, it is a simple routine, one that the Asset has memorized within five minutes. 

But The Asset doesn’t like it when they bring out the man with the dreaming voice. And makes It listen to the voice and repeats words to him, words and then what those words mean. And soon enough there is a string of words implanted in his brain right alongside Sputnik. It is horrible when the man sits him down and uses his dreamy voice, and digs out old thoughts, old feelings and old memories that It didn’t even know it had. Memories of when It was the Prisoner, memories of when It was someone else. Bucky Barnes. And then the man says those words and The Asset snaps right back where It was before. Back into an emptiness and void where all choice is ripped away from It and where It is ready to comply. It’s disorienting. And the man does it many times over before he is satisfied. And after that they put him in the chair. Loosening the last final bits with electricity, and when they put It back in Cryo, those last pieces fall away and it stops dreaming. 

Ja slušam.

That is what it says every time it wakes up from Cryo, and it shows what it has been taught, what it has been trained to do to other men in suits and uniforms. It shows them what weapon It has become. It shows the progress It has made, and they show films and pictures of years back. It doesn’t watch them, but stands beside the television as if to prove the point that the men and women in white coats and uniforms had managed to create the Asset. So when they call him Soldat, It responds, when they call him the Asset, It tells them that It complies. And It demonstrates, It shows them what they want to see and what they need to see.

All while they continue talking about It like the weapon and the kit It is. They show him the chair, they show the notebook with the words, the commands that has him in their strict control. It’s leash. And they tell the men and women in suits that this is what they have been paying for and have been waiting for the past sixteen years. They have come a long way with the Asset. And they plan for the Asset to be ready for use soon. When questioned personally what It does, the Asset waits until given order to respond. And all that The Asset tells the man in the black suit the simple truth. 

I comply.


	12. Chapter 12

1963, May - 

James wasn’t anything like Bucky, Steve had learned quickly. James, was just like Steve, and truth to be told he didn’t have a single clue of how to deal with the angry, righteous boy at times. 

Joseph had always been the bookish sort, who hadn’t grown into charm until quite recently as puberty had begun his transformation from a boy to an adult. Just in the past year Joseph had grown a foot alone, but yet had to broaden out so he wouldn’t look gangly. 

Maria hadn’t been much of a fighter either, but much like her mother she was quick witted and often shut down people just by talking them alone. And in school she had always been a well liked, and pretty girl which granted her favours. 

James, James wasn’t anything like his siblings. James was angry, and James was the one who took to back alleys to fight someone. James was the one who returned home with bruises and cuts and when asked why he had been fighting again, the answer would usually be that someone was shoving another kid around again. Steve was proud of his son, but now he had come to understand his own mother on a completely different level. 

Just like Steve had told Sara countless of times before, James would now sit at the kitchen table and tell him that Steve didn't have to worry. That he would be fine, and that he had to stand up for those who couldn’t do so for themselves. 

So when there came a gentle knock on the door to his office, Steve just looked up from the blueprint he was working at for a new apartment building. Delia, the company’s receptionist, administrator, coffee provider, encourager and general floor angel, stood in the doorway and leaned in. 

“It’s Windsor Terrace for you on line one Steve.” Delia tapped her fingers against the doorframe and pushed herself away. God bless Delia, who had dealt with Windsor Terrace so many times before and yet never once had asked any questions about why the school kept calling Steve. 

“Thank you Delia.” Steve put his pen down and pushed his chair from his drawing desk, to his official desk as he liked to call it. Where he worked on paper work and that he couldn’t wait to remove himself from. He picked up the phone, placed it against his ear and pushed in the button that would connect the line. “Steven Rogers speaking.” 

“Mr Rogers? This is Principle Houska speaking from Windsor Terrace. I’m calling about your son James Rogers.” The man spoke with a clear voice, determined, and Steve could respect that even if he wondered if the man had memorised the line by now. If he muttered it in his sleep. Steve began to clean up the desk. 

“Is everything alright?” Steve asked, wondering if the day would ever come where the man would call him because James was ill. He had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t have a clue on how to deal with that. 

“I’m calling because your son has been in another fight, and I’m wondering if you could come over for a talk? And of course, to come and pick him up. School regulations you see-” 

“Say he is suspended for the day.” Steve finished for the man, and shoved a folder in his briefcase. “I am just wrapping up at work, I will see be able to see you in half an hour. Will that do?” 

“That will be perfect. I will see you then Mr. Rogers. Goodbye.” The line went dead, and Steve with little care in the world hung up himself. He finished preparing his briefcase, getting up and leaving his office. 

“Sorry Delia it’s James, I’ll work from home for the rest of the afternoon you can reach me there.” Steve apologized to the woman, who waved him off without raising her gaze from the post that she was searching through. No questions, no judgement, Steve adored that woman. 

May was a hot month that year, and it felt like Summer had gotten such a solid start that Steve feared the season would end before it’s time was due. Steve enjoyed the twenty minute walk to the school however, it brought him away from the apartment building that had taken his focus for the morning, and cleared his mind for the upcoming meeting with Principal Houska. 

Although, Steve thought when he entered the school yard, he and Principle Houska ought to be on first name basis by now. Steve wandered over to the reception where he told the woman that he was to see Houska, and then waited patiently for the man to appear after she called him. 

Houska came less than two minutes later, a man built of equally small stature as Steve, it was nice shaking someone’s hand and being able to look into their eyes without having to raise his own. “If you please would follow me Mr. Rogers.” Houska said and began leading the way to the office. Steve followed, and once inside the room he set down the briefcase, and joined sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Houska wet around and sat down on his own, lavish desk chair and faced Steve, folding his hands together. Smacking his lips as he seemed to struggle to choose the right words. 

“Let’s not beat around the bush, shall we Mr Houska? We’ve both been here before for the same reason. Just tell me what James has done.” Steve relieved Houska of the pressure, settling into the chair and rested his ankle on his knee. 

“He fought with a boy from the eighth grade.” Houska said, sounding exasperated. “It’s his third fight this month Mr. Rogers. If he carries this behaviour up then I’m afraid we can’t have him at my school anymore. You have to understand, we don’t tolerate fighting on these grounds.” 

“Oh I understand perfectly.” Steve remembered when his mother had come back home from meetings with his own principle, bearing the exact same news. Her solution had been simply taking Steve out of the school with the bullying problem, and placed him in another school instead so Steve wouldn’t have to fight. It had been something that he had discussed with Eva, but something that never had been decided. It was definitely worth bringing up again in the evening when she came home from work. 

The rest of the meeting was all but a formality. Steve had sat through it before, Eva had sat through it before, and Houska only confirmed that he had the entire speech and any responses to give to the parents memorized. They wrapped it up in less than fifteen minutes, including various promises from Steve that would ensure that it wouldn’t happen again, and that he would “set James straight” as Houska put it. Steve had no intention of doing so, until he had spoken to the boy himself. 

When Steve finally left the office, James was brought to him by the woman who had been sitting behind the reception. James didn’t speak, and Steve didn’t pressure the boy either as they left the building and remained silent as well. They both turned to the left, and that was when Steve spoke, keeping his voice clear of any judgement. “So, what happened?” 

James shrugged and looked up from the pavement. And Steve was struck once more of how a ten year old boy was just as tall as he was now as an adult. Just like Joseph, Steve imagined, James would grow and look a lot like his grandfather. The resemblance between Steve’s father and his eldest son was uncanny, and now James was starting to take on those features. One day after looking at pictures, Eva had commented on how Steve would look alike as well if he was taller and bulkier, then proceeded to call Sara Rogers a lucky woman. 

“Robbie made fun of Andy for wearing glasses. Would have broken them if I hadn’t stepped in.” James squinted at the sunlight, glancing up the buildings. Steve wanted to sigh, and could hear the voice of his own mother in his head. How could he say anything against James for going through with such an act? 

He couldn’t punish the boy for standing up what was right, and it infuriated him that the school didn’t see it the same way. That the school most likely had let this Robbie stay in for the rest of the day despite he had been the one to bully. And his son would be the one facing consequences for standing up what was right- 

In the end, Steve did sigh and pulled his son in by placing his arm over James shoulders, squeezing them. “You did the right thing.” Steve told James, looking at him and hoped that his youngest would look him in the eyes. And he hoped that he would be able to have that bright little glint in his eyes he had seen so many times in his own mother’s eyes. The confirmation of what was good. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“I’m not.” James shrugged Steve’s arm off him, not sounding guilty. “It’s too hot dad. Don’t do that.” Steve did as he was asked, even if he wanted to keep his boy close. At ten it wouldn’t be long before the boy considered himself to old to be coddled, it had already begun. James went by far more to Eva for a hug, sometimes cuddling up to her in the couch and reading along whichever novel she was reading in the evening. 

“Right then.” Steve adjusted his grip of his briefcase. “Since it’s so warm, want to go and get some ice cream over at the park and then head home?” He suggested, nudging into James with a smile, watching how the corners of James mouth twitched upwards, and how he nodded, eagerly. “Come on then.” Steve paused by the pedestrian crossing, waited for a chance in between the traffic and darted over with James. One thing was for sure, the traffic was only going to get worse as time went by. 

It took them less than five minutes to reach the park, the school not being far off in it. And finding an ice cream stand took even less time. However waiting in line for the actual ice cream, a long line mostly with mothers and their toddlers, a couple of teenagers that had to be skipping school and one priest, took much longer. By the time they reached up to the vendor, Steve feared that the man wouldn’t have any ice cream left. 

“Ola Jaime.” The man grinned to James, placing both of his hands on the side of the cart. “Little early today aren’t we?” 

James chuckled, dropping his bag of his shoulder and peered to see what he had left. “Ola Pablo. You know that dickhead Robbie?” James looked back to the man, and Steve raised an amused eyebrow at his son interacting with the man. Clearly, James had been here before. Pablo nodded. “Made a fuss again, so I made a fuss back. So now I’m not welcome for the day, tú sabes?” 

“Ni pa.” Pablo responded and shook his head, then grabbed a cone. “The usual?” Pablo didn’t wait for an answer and already started scooping the yellow ice cream. Pineapple, it occured to Steve. Of course. 

“Oh, this is my dad.” James said, nodding over to Steve as if he suddenly had remembered him. Pablo pressed the ice cream into the cone and handed it over to James, who took it without looking. 

“Steve Rogers.” Steve introduced himself and extended his hand over for Pablo to shake. The man had a strong grip, Steve liked it. 

“Pleasure to meet the father of my best customer, now, what would you like out of my sortiment.” Pablo gestured over the ice cream, Steve had a look. 

“Best customer huh?” Steve mused. “I’ll have Strawberry please.” 

“Oh si.” Pablo took another cone and began serving up the strawberry ice cream. “José and Maria to, all your kids. Wonderful kids, always pay, that I like.” Pablo handed him the ice cream, Steve accepted, put down his briefcase and took out his wallet. 

“Makes me wonder where they’ve had the time to stop by and come the best customer huh?” Steve teased James a little bit, smirking at his direction. “I never knew nothing of this.” James shrugged, mouth full of pineapple ice cream. Steve paid Pablo. 

“We stop by after school on the way home. Pablo gives us a discount if we show good grades.” James eyed the man, Pablo snickered and placed his hand on his chest. 

“Hey guilty hermano. I’m just trying to encourage kids to stay in school so they don’t end up like me eh? Ice cream is a good business in the summer, but in the winter it is rather shit.” Steve stepped aside to James, letting the next customer through.

“I appreciate that. Any encouragement is good encouragement. Lord knows the encouragement of parents isn’t enough sometimes.” Steve told the man, who snorted. 

“Now ain't that the truth? Nice seeing you again Jaime, back at school again tomorrow si?” 

“You betcha!” James called out to Pablo, turning his back to the man and tossed his arm up in the sky to wave him off. “Bye Pablo!”

“Bye Jaime!” Pablo called after, just before he switched back to full rapid Spanish for the next customer, clearly also a long term paying customer. Steve looked at the man for a second longer, then followed his son through the park. Maybe James would never be like his namesake, and that was okay. Maybe James would be like Steve, and maybe he couldn’t be a Bucky. But he could be a Jaime, and that was okay.


	13. Chapter 13

Mission report. December 31, 1964 - 

The Asset hates waking up from cryo. But it’s all routine now and The Asset goes through it step by step to ensure the most effective wake up. It accepts the heated blanket to chase the chill out of it’s bones and it accepts the bucket for when It has to empty it’s stomach. And It sits and waits. It thinks of the training it has been given, breathing techniques, how to keep his heart rate low and how to slowly massage Its muscles to wake up.

It used to be a long process, but The Asset has done it so many times by now that the whole procedure lasts just under an hour before it is getting dressed into the uniform It is being handed. Light, black pants with more than enough pockets. Heavy boots. The jumper, the vests, and It adjusts all the straps carefully, fastens Its clothing so nothing is at risk of moving out of place, so It will not have to adjust anything and maintain peak efficiency. 

It follows the guards, and sits down at the chair they point at. And there It waits until It is joined by a man in a costume. He holds the book, and The Asset understands that he is to take orders from this young man, barely twenty. 

He is a young man, but he is not a kind man. And bit by bit the man lays out what he requires the asset to do. He speaks Russian, and gives the Asset all the information required. The Target is celebrating the New Year at an event. Large glass windows will make for an easy target. The Asset is to assassinate the target from the rooftop on the other side of the street before midnight. It will be given a sniper rifle, a combat knife and a handgun. More should not be required. 

The Asset understands, and somewhere within in is a dulled sense of excitement. It has trained for so long, it has trained for so long to be the weapon that Hydra wanted and now it would have it’s chance to show what it is capable off. To show that it is what others have doubted it would ever be. For so long the Asset has worked towards a purpose, but never given the chance to full fill it. And for the first time, it will get the chance to show it. 

A trail run, the youth says. Holding the ledger in front of him as he watches the Asset from over his glasses. “Make Hydra proud.” The youth said. “Or The Winter Soldier program will be terminated, Soldat.” 

The Asset does not have to ask what will happen to It should The Winter Soldier Program be terminated. It already knows that it will end with a bullet in between Its eyes. And the Asset has a primal urge, hidden away deep within itself, an urge to stay alive no matter what is being thrown at it. 

So it gathers the weapons, and it goes into the van surrounded by guards. It is dropped off just a few miles outside of a city, Moscow, It had learned during the briefing. But doesn’t stop to marvel at the buildings and the streetlights illuminating the skyline ahead of it. And instead it goes straight into the drain. The guards climb back in the van, and drives off. 

The Asset works its way through the sewers, the map that the youth had shown all but memorized. It goes straight, takes a left and continues straight, then takes a right and another left. It moves around in a jog, making quick time and not even pausing to check the wrist watch. Instead it keeps on running as it presses the button that illuminates the small screen on the inside of Its rist. It is making good time. 

Climbing out on the street, It comes up in the alley just like the map has shown. It takes cover in the darkness of the night behind a bin as two agents walk through the street. Talking about how they will write the report in regards of the school teacher who turned traitor to the country. And when they passed, it climbs silently and quickly up the ladder by the side of the building. It can hear music by the time It reaches the rooftops, and settles on the designated spot at the edge of the roof, brushing away some of the snow. 

It sets up the gun, and looks through the scope to the party on the other end. It checks the watch, showing twenty-three and fourteen. Orders were before midnight, but not before eleven thirty. So the Asset waits, and keeps the barrel aimed at the target it had been given. Ignoring the snow and ignoring the chill, but taking Its time to calculate the wind into the shot it is about to take. It still held another primal urge at its sharpshooting skills, it needed the least training for that, a natural efficiency, It had believed. It had later overheard Its handlers talk about it and say a skill we kept. It didn’t understand, but did not ask either. It wasn’t the Asset’s position to ask questions. 

At twenty-three-forty-five, the Asset takes a deep breath, holds it, adjusts the weapon one final time and gently squeezes the trigger. It sees in the scope how the bullet hits the target just where requested, on its forehead and watches the targets head snap back and fall to the floor. The woman in the green dress with glitter screams and drops her wine, attracting the attention of the other guests. 

The Asset doesn’t remain to see the outcome. It grabs it’s gun and makes its escape and exit. Agents will be crawling all over, and while It can overpower them, It does not want to leave behind a trail. That was not part of the mission. With quick, catlike movements it climbs down the building, landing softly in the snow just as the doors to the buildings on the opposite end of the street slam open. It looks, surveys four guards, all armed, and one fat captain barking orders. Not armed, all show. 

It turns, and takes the escape route that had been planned out for it. It has to take a detour, finding other agents who became attracted to the commotion. Its escape route is blocked, and it knocks out an agent, dragging him into an alley to take his coat and hat. Putting it on for disguise. 

After that It makes the bold move of just wandering the streets, wandering through the people, and stops in its tracks when it hears explosions. Not those of guns, or grenades or bombs, and confused it looks around, then up and stops in Its tracks. It marvels at the sight above him, of red and gold sparkling in the sky, blue and silver creating stars and green and bronze. 

It watches, and loses track of what It was supposed to do. How can it focus on anything else? It’s a beautiful sight, and somewhere, primal within itself again It feels a sense of joy, the need to… it can’t put a finger to it. The need to be with others, the need to… It doesn’t know. Checks the time and realises it has wasted five minutes just looking at the sky. It runs off. 

Eventually, it makes it to a point where it can slide back into the sewers. And from there it can navigate itself back to the point where they dropped It off. The van is no longer there, but the Asset doesn’t worry and works Its way into the woods. That was what was supposed to happen, and it navigates Its way through the snow and trees, dumping the coat and hat now that has kept It warm, to warm. And now moves easier, blending in with the dark even if Its fingers are growing numb from the cold. 

By six in the morning, It has reached the small dirt road, forgotten to the rest of the world. And clears it so Its handlers will have an easier time reaching It. Then it waits, sitting on a fallen over tree and digs Its flesh hand in its vest to warm it. And occasionally flexes Its fingers on the metal hand, breaking of the thin layer of frost that had begun building. It feels the cold moving into Its chest and shoulder and checks the watch again. O-Seven-Twenty-one, they will be here soon, and then It will be warm. It focuses on the breathing exercises, and massages Its muscles just like it does when it comes out of cryo.

The break of the small twig makes its head snap up, wondering who snuck up on him. It hears everything, even the faintest whispers and footsteps. But now it had heard nothing. And when it looks, it sees a deer, watching it in return with its black beads of eyes. Deep, huffed breaths, forming white clouds by its nostrils. An ear twitches, and it looks away. It looks royal, The Asset thinks, and watches how it slowly keeps on walking, scraping its antlers against a few trees, and eventually disappears amongst the trunks. 

The Asset watches how the world is growing brighter, from dark night, to grey and blue, and watches the rays of the sun come in between the tree branches like it is some form of magic. And hears the birds come to life. It would have liked to remain sitting there, it feels oddly peaceful, but the truck appears, and so does its handlers. So it gets in, and leaves behind the little wonderland that it had discovered. And wonders, just how the deer lived in such a barren winterland. 

The ride back lasts a little over two hours. And by then the numb feeling in its flesh hand has passed away. Obediently, it follows the guards back into the base, and seats itself on the same chair it had been sitting on hours before. It waits, and the youth in the suit arrives. Tired, bags under his eyes and even some glitter on one shoulder of his suit. It makes the asset wonder if he also had been at a party, and why everyone had been in so many parties that night. Why the sky had been illuminated like that. 

“Mission report.” The youth demands, folding his hands together in front of him, looking down at the Asset. There is a faint hint of perfume, the Asset notes, and he can see the faint trace of something red on the youths neck and wonders if he was allowed to do such matters. But it doesn’t ask, and instead clears its throat. 

“Target eliminated at twenty-three-forty-five. Bullet to the forehead as requested. Confirmed dead. Escape route compromised. Rerouted under cover. Arrival at pickup point at o-seven-forty-nine. Weapons used, one, sniper rifle. One bullet shot. Mission successful.” 

The youth nods, a hint of a smile on his features. “Mission successful indeed. You did well Soldat. The Winter Soldier program will continue.” 

“What was that in the sky?” The Asset asks before it can stop itself. The youth raises an eyebrow to it, waiting for it to continue. It feels a sudden flush of heat down its neck, knowing that it should not have spoken. But words that were said could not be taken back. “The red, the blue. The bangs and the colours?” 

The youth watches it emotionless, expression unreadable. Trained by the finest in Hydra, the Asset realises now. “Fireworks.” The youth says eventually. The Asset looks down to the floor, fireworks, he had seen that once before. Over water, but it couldn’t place where. 

“Wipe him, then put him under.” The youth told the guard to his right. “Then prepare for shipping. That will be all.” The youth turned, and left them in the room. The Asset gets up, and follows the guards to the chair, its chair, and sits down. Chest rising and falling faster, more rapidly, preparing for the pain, preparing for the burning feeling chasing through his bones and setting his left shoulder on fire. It takes the piece of rubber in its mouth to protect its teeth, and screams when electricity is chased through its head again. 

Inside, it almost feels like fireworks. And the image of the deer begins to crumble.


	14. Chapter 14

2014, January - 

“Good news Mr Rogers.” The young doctor slides to his desk with his chair, scratching his cheek with one finger as he’s reading over the papers. There’s a hint of a tattoo by the mans wrist, and Steve huffs amused to himself of the time when that man would be stamped as a criminal. He he was, saving lives. Times changed, he thought, and only for the better. The doctor smiles at Steve and Joseph, who sags in his seat with relief. “Everything turned out negative. You’re in excellent health, I almost daresay that you’re in the running for another twenty years if you’re lucky.”

At that, Steve laughed, a dry sound that went over to a cough. And to think that people hadn’t believed that he would make it past his infancy, and then past his tenth birthday. People kept postponing his so called death, as did doctors. And now he lived in a day and age where almost anything could be cured, and what couldn’t even had medicines that slowed down the process of a disease significantly. As a child, he had heard that he was weak, and that he would die. Now he had a doctor in front of him telling him that he could make it to one hundred and sixteen. The doctors from his youth must be rolling over in their graves. 

“As long as I get to keep my wits, I will take those twenty years.” Steve told the young man, who chuckled at the comment and put away the papers in a folder and shut it, handing it over to Joseph, who took it with a string of gratitudes. He had fretted by far to much about the result of the tests, and no matter what Steve had said he hadn’t believed him. 

“You seem like a sharp man to me Mr. Rogers. I wouldn’t worry to much about that. But do remember, forgetting as one gets older is only natural. It’s being confused that is a warning bell. You know, oddities. Forgetting where you left your key is only normal and hell, happens to fifteen year olds these days with all they have to think about.” The man shrugged, leaning against his desk. Joseph snorted. 

“Very true, my daughter complains about my granddaughter on that point all the time.” Joseph admitted. Steve only looked to his son and hummed. 

“That has always been a problem. I recall you sitting on the steps more than once.” Steve pointed out to Joseph, who made a point in ignoring his father’s comment. The doctor smirked a little, and began toying with the rubber band that was tied around his wrist, fidgeting a bit, and Steve wondered if he was trying to quit smoking. Joaquin had used the exact same method back in the eighties. 

“Now, is there anything else I can do? You sleep well, eat well?” He inquired. 

“Nothing of bother besides stiffness in the morning.” If he could hurry that procedure up, then Steve would be grateful. Yet, by the way that the doctor rose his shoulders, it told Steve that there couldn’t be anything done about it. 

“Thank you very much Doctor, we’ll be on our way. Dad could you take this?” Joseph handed Steve the folder and got up from his chair. Steve, reluctantly, remained seated in the wheelchair. Told the Doctor to have a good day, and allowed for Joseph to roll him out of the office and then down the hallway. 

“I can walk for myself you know?” Steve reminded Joseph, finding the use of a wheelchair humiliating if he didn’t actively need it. Now, he considered, he didn’t. He had walked just fine to the car, and from the car into the Hospital. It had been there that a nurse had arrived with a wheelchair, saying something about a policy to Joseph and well. He hadn’t been able to argue. No, that wasn’t true, he had been able to argue, they just hadn’t allowed him to do so. At times, the will of the elder was ignored quite frequently, Steve had come to learn. Especially by children who only meant well, and they did. 

“I know you can dad. They’re just afraid of being sued.” Joseph stopped in front of the elevator and pushed down the call button for the elevator. “If you fall and break something.” Steve scoffed at that. 

“If I fall and break something then that is my own shame and not their responsibility. I wouldn’t sue.” Steve readjusted his footing on the pedal and shifted his cane into a more comfortable position. 

“I know dad, but not everyone is like you.” Joseph hummed and watched the digits above the elevator door change with the arrow. The doors opened and he pushed Steve inside. “Some woman once sued McDonalds because their coffee was hot.” 

“Coffee is supposed to be hot.” 

“I know dad.” Joseph said. “But that doesn’t stop them from doing it. It’s the century of stupid people and stupid lawsuits. Or smart people pretending to be stupid and finding little loopholes and taking large settlements. And they don’t know ahead of time if you’re someone like that or not. And for all sake, they don’t know if I would sue them or if I wouldn’t.”

“You wouldn’t sue them for my own stupidity.” Steve retorted, looking up to his son and having to crane his neck in an uncomfortable position to do so. Joseph looked down to Steve. 

“I wouldn’t? Shouldn’t I? As an upset son to an elderly father who broke his hip because the neglect of service to a ninety-six-year-old? You heard what happened to Arthur, and you heard what the doctor told you earlier. You could live for another twenty years. I don’t think that accounts broken hips.” There was a mischievous smile coming on Joseph’s face, and Steve rolled his eyes as he realised that his son was only messing with him. “Come on, let’s grab a bite to eat in the cafeteria before we head home. Diane is trying to put me on a diet again.”

“With all the right.” Steve grumbled under his breath. Joseph ignored him and stepped behind the wheelchair again. The elevator pinged and the doors opened. And influx of people and noise was seen and heard, although Joseph could navigate his way through the crowd fairly easily with the wheelchair. There was a short line by the cafeteria. Joseph bought them both a sandwich and a bottle of sparkling water. 

They took a table by the window, and Steve stopped listening to Joseph and turned to look at the television screen hanging up against the wall. The news was on, showing a rerun of the same images he had seen that morning. The car flipped over and smoke running up to the sky. Nothing new, Steve realised, disappointed. 

“Dad.” Joseph repeated, Steve hummed and looked back to his son. He held his phone in his hand. “Do you want me to call Jaime and let him know? The results?” 

“Oh.” Steve shook his head and took his water bottle. “No. It’s two in the morning for him. Let him sleep and send him an email or something for when he wakes up.” Steve wasn’t even certain that Jaime would know that Steve had the appointment at the hospital that morning. It was hard to know what the boy thought at times, Steve thought. And ever since the death of Eva it had only been harder. Struggling to open the water bottle, he passed it on to Joseph, who twisted the cap open.

“Did you get a sticker on yours?” Joseph asked absentmindedly, suddenly looking intently at his own water bottle and started peeling at the label. Steve twisted the bottle in his hands and noticed it was an Avengers bottle, commercialised and everything. It hadn’t taken long. Two years and now people were already making money of them. 

“I did. Take it for Kara. She still collects them doesn’t she?” Steve offered. Joseph nodded, managed to peel the sticker of and turned it around, frowning when he saw the hero. 

“Another Thor, she has millions of Thor’s. Wants the arrow guy. They’re hard to get or so she says.” Joseph put the sticker down and began the process of peeling off the sticker from Steve’s bottle. 

“Does he even have a name?” Steve asked, pulling open the wrapper to his sandwich.

“Hawk or eyeball or something like that. She knows. Aha!” Joseph peeled off the sticker, turned it around and frowned again. “And Hulk. Oh well.” He tucked them away in his wallet and opened the wrapper of his own sandwich. 

“I met Iron Man during the incident, does she know?” Steve asked, taking a bite of his sandwich. Judging by the surprise on Joseph’s face, Steve realised that even his son hadn’t been aware of that. “It was only for like a second. He wouldn’t know me now. Called me old man, flew by and proceeded to blast aliens out of the sky.” He took a bite, chicken salad sandwich, good choice. 

“I don’t think she does.” Joseph said. “Why have you never told me? She actually would come by and visit just to hear you tell that tale. She purposely wants to go to Juilliard in Manhattan when she’s off to college, hoping on a chance to see them, she says.” 

“You never gave me much chance.” Steve huff. “The moment the incident was over you were more concerned in getting me out of New York than listening to me that I was fine and all that. ” 

“Dad, Aliens were pouring out of the sky, of course I wanted you out of New York. And after Hulk also having smashed Harlem to bits? Hell yeah I wanted you with me and not there.” Joseph argued. “It will happen again, mark my words. With those X-mans there, the fantastic four or whatever they call themselves? New York will become a haven for those other wordly attacks, mark my words.”

“Thor first landed in New Mexico did he not?” Steve pointed out. “And Stark had his own disaster in California. Loki first wound up in Germany for as far as I know. So clearly, the rest of the United States is not exempt from these events, something will happen in Washington to eventually. You could have left me at The Meadows. At least I liked it there, and I’d go into Brooklyn ground when the time comes.” 

“Dad please, we’re not having this discussion again.” Joseph huffed, and with that, shut down the discussion and ran over the will of the elder again. Steve felt both to tired and to annoyed to continue picking a fight. Even when he should be grateful to Joseph for all he did for him. He knew that there were by far to many children far to happy to forget their parents once they had left them in a nursing home. And not many would invite their elderly father to come and live with them in the spare bedroom and use up their own golden years looking after the parent. Steve was the reason why Joseph and Diane argued as much as they did, and he knew that. He wanted to help by leaving, going back to Brooklyn and The Meadows if they would take him. But without Joseph, he couldn’t get there, Joseph had to let him go in the first place. 

“Fine.” Steve agreed much against his will, and began to eat his sandwich again. They finished it in silence, Joseph being faster as usual. The tension in between the pair left quickly, and soon they were wrapped in a conversation about just why hawkguy or hawkeye got the shaft on the stickers. In the end Joseph decided that it had to be because no one really knew anything about him or the redheaded woman. Thor, Iron man and the Hulk were all over google, but the other two only had theories in forums. 

Joseph informed his children and Diane that the results had returned negative and all was well, and sent the messages even further to his own grandchildren. The kids responded by far quicker than his children did and for a moment all that Joseph’s phone did was buzz. None of them seemed to have known that Steve would be getting results, but were happy nonetheless to hear the positive news. Joseph showed some more pictures of his youngest grandson that his youngest had sent him, and Steve marvelled at how much the boy had grown in just six months. Finding himself loving technology as he got to see a video of the kid taking his first steps. 

“We should go.” Joseph said when the clip ended and tucked his phone away in his coat. “I still need to pick up some things before we can head back. You up for that dad?” Joseph asked, Steve rolled his eyes and removed the brakes on the wheelchair, pushing himself away from the table. 

“It’s not like I’ve been walking myself to exhaustion in this building.” Steve told Joseph, but didn't want to admit that the high point of his day was getting to leave the apartment. The longer he got to stay out, the happier he would feel in the evening. And with a bit of luck he would be able to sleep all night through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for not posting this fic in the usual schedule previous week. Work took an unexpected, busy turn and I've had some health issues at the same time, which knocked me so out of the loop that I downright didn't have the time to post or even write on any other projects. Things have settled down now, and posting will continue as usual on every Tuesday and every Saturday. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got no excuse for not posting yday, I was watching a movie, fell asleep, woke up, went to bed and just downright forgot.

1978, February -

The meeting had almost put Steve straight to sleep. But at the age of sixty he thought he had earned a little bit of leeway in the company when it came to boring meetings like this. At the end it seemed like they hadn’t settled on anything, and Steve needed three large cups of coffee before he had started to feel somewhat human again. Yet he hadn’t recovered from the hot meeting room with bad air circulation, there was a headache building and all he wanted to do was to sleep. 

So Steve had packed up all his items and decided to just call it an early day. It was Friday, so what if he decided to cheat start a little bit on the weekend? He could make something nicer for dinner for Eva by the time that she came home. Now when the kids had all moved out and a lot of their time had been freed up, Steve tried to ensure make sure that he could spoil his wife a bit more. 

Joseph had been living with his wife for nearly a decade now, even if he had come up more and more for visits in the middle of the week which gave Steve and Eva the feeling that things weren’t quite right. Maria lived with her own husband just a few streets away, and came by every Saturday with her newborn daughter just to check off with mom that everything was just as it should be. And Jaime, well, truth to be told, Steve wasn’t certain where Jaime was stationed just at that time. The boy had drifted for quite some time when he had finished school, but in the end had found his calling in the Navy. Steve found it a perfect fit, and it seemed like Jaime was content where he was. 

Steve stopped by the grocery store to pick up some food for the evening, deciding that he would surprise Eva by making a potato gratin for the evening with a salmon dish. Afterwards he headed to the florist and picked up a bouquet of orange roses. Valentines day had only been the previous week, and the florist was still overrun with pink roses from the holiday. But Steve hadn’t wanted pink roses, he wanted her to feel special, and purposely picked out a different colour so she knew he wouldn’t have picked them from the bargain bin. She only deserved the best. 

He also bought a card, wrote a little note and tied it to the flowers. Then he continued onwards home. Taking the subway for the two required stops. The weather was too awful for him to want to walk, and he still felt sluggish from the meeting. He took the elevator up in the building, ignoring the stairs for once and nearly spent five minutes trying to fish out his set of keys from his coat. He slid the key into the lock, unlocked the door and stepped inside. Humming a song that had been taking over the radio. 

Steve took of his shoes, singing on a low tone to himself, and went to hang up his coat. That was when he paused. Eva’s red coat was already hanging up. Steve checked his watch, wondering if he had gotten time all wrong and it was past seven, when she would get home off her shift. But found that it only was four and Eva was already home.

“Oh.” He mused softly for himself, then decided he still could surprise her with dinner and flowers. He picked up the bag groceries from the floor and the flowers and padded silently into the kitchen. She probably had already heard him when he had entered the apartment, but he could keep some element of surprise. He found her sitting in the kitchen with her back turned to him, gently put the bag on the counter and snuck up behind her. 

“Good afternoon my love.” Steve whispered, showing her the flowers and felt how she flinched against his chest, she clearly hadn’t heard him. He pressed a kiss against her neck, smelling that sweet perfume of hers. “I didn’t know you’d be home.”

“Oh Steve.” Eva said, and Steve instantly heard that there was something wrong. She sniffed and he quickly moved to sit down on the chair beside her. She tried to smile as she touched the roses, but her cheeks were wet and eyes were red, holding a tissue in one hand. “They’re really pretty.” 

“Hey.” Steve whispered softly, tucking some of her black hair behind her eyes. Now at sixty-two her hair was still mostly black, and like her mother she had only gotten a few stray strands of grey. But he imagined she would be able to keep her natural hair colour for many more years to come. “What’s wrong Love? Why are you crying?” 

The question made Eva press a few fingers against her lips, she shut her eyes and the corners of her mouth moved downwards. She took a sharp intake of breath and began to cry again. Steve scooted his chair closer to her, moving his arm around her to comfort her, whispering softly to her that everything was okay and not pushing her to talk until she was ready. 

It took her a good couple of minutes to calm down, and by then Steve had gotten very worried what had upset her to this extent. The last time he had seen her like this had been at the funeral of her father, and it made him wonder if there was another death that had happened. 

“An accident happened at work.” Eva eventually said, breathing still shaky. She didn’t look at him, instead keeping her eyes on the flowers that he had bought for her, fingers toying a bit with the plastic that was wrapped around the roses. “And they made me take a leave of absence. I didn’t mean to Steve it was an accident.”

“Oh honey.” Steve squeezed her hand a bit, smiling at her. “It was an accident, like you said they’ll see that. You’ll be back before you know it. What happened?” He inquired, convinced that the whole ordeal couldn’t be that bad. Despite the sinking feeling in his gut when he watched Eva shake her head. 

“A woman nearly died because of me Steve.” Eva said sharply, shutting her eyes again. “And she still might because I forgot something. And and and- and they say I’m getting forgetful and starting to become slow and, and I probably won't make it back Steve. The family is furious with me and with all the right Steve, but I just… I… I didn’t mean to it was an accident and I forgot and I-” She began to sob again, absolutely distraught with herself. 

“They’re going to make an evaluation and I’ll have to talk to some people and, and my boss said that maybe now was a good time to consider retirement. I love my job Steve, I love helping people it was an accident, I didn’t mean to I- I-” 

“Hey. Hey.” Steve took her hand again, scooting his chair closer a second time so they might as well sit on a bench together. He found it hard to comprehend what she was saying, but he understood the hysterics that came along with it. For thirty-one years he had seen her dedication to her work and the hospital up close, he had watched her grow in it, to eventually becoming one of the most respected and qualified senior nurses in her wing. He had watched her cry tears of joy for some patients and sorrow for others, he had watched her go the extra mile for everyone, and working over without ever once complaining. 

“Calm down, take a breath.” Steve urged her, she paused, and did as she was told without tearing her eyes of the roses. “Now tell me what happened? I believe you, it’s an accident, so just tell me what happened.” Knowing she wasn’t legally allowed to share what happened at her work to her patients, but at that moment Steve didn’t give a good god damn, his wife was upset and she needed to talk about it. So what? No one would ever know, and if they somehow did? He would deny they ever had this conversation. 

“I was helping this old lady to the bathroom, sweet woman. Needs help moving about. So I stepped outside and told her I would be right back with her, five minutes.” Eva swallowed and dapped her tissue in the corner of her eyes. “And. And I don’t know what happened, I don’t know Steve I just… I forgot. I left the bathroom, and then her room to give her some privacy, and I stepped out of the door and I just…” She gestured wildly by the side of her head. “I forgot what I had been doing. So I left. And I continued working and I… I forgot about the woman.” She shook her head, pressing her eyes shut, shame in every inch of her being and Steve couldn’t understand how her boss hadn’t seen that.

“Eventually Julia found her on the floor in her bathroom, she had tried to get up because I hadn’t come back and slipped on the floor. She’s a tiny thing Steve, couldn’t reach the call button. She had been laying on the cold floor for three hours. For a ninety-two-year old woman that’s a long time Steve, it’s a long time for someone healthy. So she’s getting ill because of it and they were trying to warm her back up but if they can’t then her organs will shut down and then they can’t do anything. She might die.” 

“Oh Love.” Steve pulled her closer to him and pressed a kiss against her cheek. She rested her head against his shoulder and let out a single sob again, pressing her hand against her temple. 

“They were so angry with me, the other nurses. I overheard Claudia snap over me, saying that I’m useless, always misplacing things and that I’ve got a screw or two loose. That I begin things but never finish but Steve, I can’t remember any of that. They’ve been angry with me for the past few months but I could never figure it out and now I hear Claudia, and that happens and Chelsea saying that I don’t belong there anymore and… Steve that’s my second home, you know that.”

That worried Steve. He knew that Eva was a bit more confused now then she had been a few years before. But he himself felt that his memory wasn’t always at the best. So yes, they both had trouble remembering where they left the keys, and yes, they both warmed water for their tea and forgot about it until it had gotten cold, and yes, sure Eva had turned on the stove to cook for them and forgotten about the potatoes she had put on until it started to boil over. But that was only human wasn’t it?

But to hear that Eva just had forgotten about a woman at work? And that she misplaced things, began tasks to never finish them? He didn’t like hearing that. They were both becoming older now, they were both in good health still sure, but eventually age would begin to catch up with the pair of them. That, was a scary concept. 

“Listen to me.” Steve smiled at her. “It is not your fault that the hospital didn't ensure those buttons are within reach. Okay? You’re a nurse, you have a million tasks to do in far to little time. So yes, something is bound to slip your mind. Is that your fault as well? No, if the hospital staffed you properly, which they never have if I might add, none of you would be wandering around like the headless chickens you somehow describe that hen house to be.” He did his best to comfort her, unsure of how well she was taking it until he saw her soft and weak little smile. It wasn’t much, but it was more than enough to ensure Steve that she had heard what he had said, that she was taking it in and slowly winding down. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Steve assured her, rubbing circles in her back and wanting her to let it go. Even if he still repeated it in his own mind what she had told him. She just forgot, she described behaviour that she had at home and now apparently had at work. He didn’t know how to take that, but he couldn’t let her know that he feared at the same time. “Everything will be fine.” He kissed her on her cheek, and then a soft kiss on her lips. “Okay?” 

“Okay.” She whispered softly in return, then rested her head back on Steve’s shoulder and looked back at the roses. She took a deep breath again, and Steve could feel her tension leave her shoulders, her arms and her back. She would be tired tonight, he could already tell. 

“They’re really pretty.” She whispered on a low tone, Steve brushed his fingers through her hair. 

“I’m glad you like them.” Steve told her softly. Pressing another kiss against her head. “Why don’t you get a vase for them and a glass of wine or something? I bought groceries, was going to surprise you with potato gratin and that salmon dish you like so much. Would you like that?” Steve suggested to her, feeling her nod against his shoulder. She straightened up and stroked her hair behind her ear. She gave him a look, the sad look in her eyes tore him apart, but the smile however weak still hinted that she had fully taken in his words. 

She was calming down, it would ghost through her for the rest of the evening but it would leave. And all that Steve wanted for his wonderful wife was a sense of peace. “Yes, I’d like that thank you. I love you.” 

Steve kissed her.


	16. Chapter 16

1984, November - 

Steve made sure to visit Eva every day. The decision to put her in a home had torn him apart emotionally, and at times it felt like it had done the same even physically. The apartment had always been the perfect fit for their family, even if it had been crowded when all the kids had lived at home. But the very first night that Steve had spent in it alone as Eva spent her first night in The Meadows had been positively terrifying in the sense that it was to large. It felt like the sound of the clock haunted him throughout the rooms. And he kept thinking back of Eva, wondering how she was handling it. 

Truth was (and Steve was aware of this), Eva was handling it by far better than he was. There was some underlying anxiety with everything being new and strange, Steve had noticed that before he had left for the evening. But the bright side of her disease and the way it had progressed for her meant that she had become quite accepting of everything that happened alongside her. 

The doctor had told Steve that it was a lucky development. One that not all alzheimer patients had. Most only grew more confused and scared as time went on, but Eva had the luck of feeling happy and content. Eva had always been happy, but yet as Steve looked at her he found that there was still a shell around her. 

He had tried so desperately to look after her himself. Naturally after the incident she hadn’t been allowed to return to work which had devastated her. But there also hadn’t been made an inquiry after an initial couple of doctors tests. She had been let go, and Eva stayed home. She managed fine for most of the time, and Maria made sure to drop by once during noon so she didn't forget to eat. 

Steve took over once he came home from work, and so they managed to build a routine. He let her keep her indepence over a watchful eye and fixed whatever she walked away from without her noticing. But it became clear as time progressed that she couldn’t be left alone. And after a handful of times when Maria had turned up to the apartment to find Eva gone, she had sat him down with Joseph to ask just what they were going to do. 

Like it or not, Maria had said, they were no professionals with this disease, and it would only grow worse. There was nothing they could do and there would come a time when all their time had to go into looking after their mother. Steve could retire soon yes, but would he be able to look after her himself day in day out. Naturally Steve had been stubborn, and said that he could. 

Joseph told him that while he understood, he also thought that Steve was heavily underestimating the time and dedication that would come with it. And could he truly handle looking after his wife while she bit by bit began to forget who he was, she already couldn’t tell Joseph apart from Jaime. And at some point she would forget how to eat, how to speak, how to brush her teeth. For now she still did all those things upon reminding her, upon showing her the fork and the toothbrush. But at some point those objects would become foreign to her. 

Steve had said that he could do that. But the truth was, it had been far more different in reality. 

It had been straining, and it had been downright depressing. Steve could wake up in the mornings and by just looking tell at what sort of day she would have. And then one morning, she had looked at Steve over breakfast and he could tell that she didn’t know who he was. There was a question mark in her eyes, but she smiled, hummed in that pleased and almost creepy way of hers and accepted her company at the breakfast table. He had to remind her of her toast to keep her eating. 

It hadn’t been until then, that Steve had found it to taxing. And while it had broken his heart to put her in The Meadows, he did realise that it was the better option for her. He had struggled for the past year in telling himself that what he had done wasn’t selfish, and that it was by far the better place for her to be. Her quality of life had improved significantly. even if it had left him alone in their apartment where they had been sharing a life with one another for the past twenty-five years. 

So Steve didn’t know what to do with himself, and had struggled at first with the adaption. He made sure to visit Eva every day, and brought her flowers once a week just as he bought chocolates for the staff every week. Some days were better, and some were worse, and slowly he watched her forget how to speak. And all she would do was hum in response to him and smiled. She didn’t know who the man was that visited her, and she didn’t know that the man had been visiting him every single day. He may still very much love his wife, but the horrible truth was that he didn’t know what he could do to help her.

All that he had been able to do was to find the best home that he could, and move her into it. And every evening he sat at home in their apartment in the middle of their pictures and their life, watching television for lack of better things to do, and felt guilty. And once he retired, he had a whole lot of time on his hands that he hadn’t known how to fill, and had moved into a rather depressing existence. 

Steve still tried to look after himself though, and in order to make up for lack of social contact he had joined a book club and a film club at the library, he had signed himself up for a painting class for seniors and so worked had to widen his social circle. It had worked, and he had met plenty of new people with whom he enjoyed spending time. 

It was from from the book club that he returned home from that evening. Book still in hand and slightly chilled from the late November air. There was snow threatening, but Steve had a feeling none of that would happen. He unlocked his door, and stepped into the apartment. He didn’t need much more than a second to realise that he had visitors. The small pink shoes in the hallway hinted at Josephine, and that meant that Maria had come over with her husband John. 

He barely had the time to take off his own shoes before little Josephine ran into the hallway, toy in hand and pigtails bouncing. “Granddad!” She exclaimed, swinging her arms around him for a hug and nearly knocked Steve off is feet. 

“Hey sweetheart.” Steve put down the book and gave the little girl a kiss on the top of her head. “What you doing here?” He asked her, not breaking their hug until the girl took initiative to break it on her own. She looked down and began fiddling with the toy, so Steve took his chance and stripped out of his coat. 

“Mommy and daddy wanted to come.” She said with the simplicity that only a child was able to, as if that explained everything in the world. Steve hung up his coat, picked up the book again from the floor and took Josephine’s hand. She guided him into the kitchen, where Maria was seated on one of the chairs with John next to her, speaking to one another in hushed voices. 

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Steve asked, letting Josephine’s hand slip out of his own and put the book on the table. “Is there any coffee?” He asked, eyeing the mugs that John and Maria had in front of them. He could tell the strain Maria, he could tell her attempt at keeping it together and wondered if he was capable of hearing more bad news. 

“Yeah there is, Josie go out and play in the living room yeah? Mommy needs to talk to grandpa.” Maria told her daughter, keeping her voice stable as she spoke. Steve had always admired his daughter for that, a straight, strong spine that would keep herself stable for the sake of her daughter. She would be a strong mother. 

The girl obeyed, and Steve filled up a cup of coffee for himself. John took Maria’s hand, and they waited patiently until Steve had sat down in front of them before they began talking. Maria pulled her hand out from under John’s, and crossed them over the table. “What’s going on?” 

“We went to the doctor today.” Maria began, strong willed, and Steve wondered if she envisioned the spine that he regarded her as. She bit on her lower lip and looked down. Choosing her next words carefully. Steve wanted to shut it out, he wanted to get up and leave, go out to Josephine and ignore that this conversation had happened. The past few years had been rough, and he didn’t want it to take yet another turn. “I’ve got breast cancer dad.” 

Maria didn’t give him a chance to run and hide from the news. She was blunt and upfront, always had been. In many points of her life that had been a golden skill that Steve prided her for. But at that moment he didn't want to hear any more bad news. His family had suffered enough the past few years, and he didn’t want his daughter to suffer on top of that. She wasn’t even thirty-four yet. And her daughter, sweet little Josephine didn’t need to see her mother grow sick. 

Still, Steve tried to cling with the hope that everything was going to be okay, that it was an early stage, that it was fixable. But he knew just by looking at Maria that it wasn’t going to be that simple. 

So what did one say at a time like this? Steve found himself staring dumbfoundedly at his daughter, mouth open like a fish. Maria relieved him of what to say and what to do. Stripped him of the responsibility to come up with comforting words and showed her strength once more. He admired her, and he envied her, at times he had wished he had half of her strength when he had been dealing with Eva. For her the confidence had always been such a natural thing. 

“They’re going to try and slow the whole process down, but it’s highly unlikely. It’s stage four dad, it’s already spread to my liver and into my blood. With nicer words dad. I’m fucked. They don’t know, but my chances are very, very low dad.” 

“No.” Steve shook his head. “No.” He repeated, not wanting to believe what he had heard. He was prepared for bad news even if he hadn’t wanted to hear it. But he hadn’t been prepared to hear that. 

“Yes, Dad.” Maria sniffed and looked into the direction of the living room, looked at her daughter playing with the toys that she had brought along for the visit, mixed with the toys that Steve kept for her. “Listen.” She looked back to him. “I’m going to be strong, and I’m going to fight this thing to the end. But dad, you have to promise me to be strong as well. For mom, and for her. Because they’re both going to need you, and I am going to need you, okay?” 

Steve wanted to sob, wanted to curse any god that had allowed this to happen, wanted to say that Maria deserved better, wanted to say that she was too damn young. That she still had an entire life to enjoy, that she had a daughter who she had to watch grow up. But he couldn’t, not after what Maria had just told him, not when he saw how John was reaching a breaking point, by looking at neither of them and stared into his coffee. Steve wondered which felt worse, watching your wife forget you, or finding out your wife would die. At the end they were quite alike. 

So he reached out for her hand, she offered it and he squeezed it. “Of course.” He said, hoping that he wasn’t lying. He wanted to be there for her, he wanted to be strong for her. His little girl deserved nothing but the best from him. And somehow, somehow he would make sure that she lived it through this. He would make sure that little Josephine would have a mother when she was growing up. 

Of course, Steve had often learned that he had no control over fate and the future. He was just a horrible student and chose to forget that lesson the moment after he had learned it. And when something was set in stone, then there was absolutely nothing that he could do against it.


	17. Chapter 17

Mission report. December 16. 1991 - 

They wake up the Asset in Queens. It has been there a couple of times before, but doesn’t like it for a reason it can’t quite explain. It doesn’t feel right, it thinks. Of all the places where it wakes up, it dislikes Queens the most, somehow it feels like it’s a betrayal, and that it should wake up elsewhere in New York. 

It is Vasily Karpov that holds the ledger and is its handler now. Karpov has been finding a lot of use for the Asset, and in a way it almost thinks that there is a sense of comfort in waking up and seeing the same person stand in front of it every time, even if Karpov never shares. Somehow, it makes the asset feel less lost. It obeys, goes into the chair and it listens to the words that the hypnotist once dug so deep into its mind. 

The mission is simple, stage an accident, take the briefcase, secure delivery, no survivors, no witnesses. It feels like it has done it a million times before, while truth is it has only done it a handful of times. But every time it is praised for its work, even if its handlers take the credit. 

He is released in the dead of night, given a motorbike and a simple shotgun, though it still brings its knife. The knife is familiar, and has remained the same over decades, the asset doesn’t tell them, but it is familiar and it tries to cling to all that is familiar. 

There is little traffic, and the asset sets its way out from Queens to Long Island, to the set up scout spot and it waits. It waits, and a little bit past one in the morning it sees the car leave the home that it has been waiting for. In the dark the asset follows. It stays behind the car, it pulls up besides the car and takes the gun it was given. One bullet into the car is all that he needs to do. The driver veers off the road and into a tree. 

The Asset stops, parks its bike and gets off. It filters through the orders it was given, and it decides to check on the package first. It opens the trunk and sees the briefcase. And when it opens the briefcase it sees a familiar shade of blue. But doesn’t think to much about it. Package secure. 

Now the next command filters through, no survivors. The man driving the car is crawling on the ground, a desperate attempt to get away. It pulls the man up by his hair and looks at him. “Please.” He begs. “My wife.” 

No survivors, the asset thinks, and brings down its steel fist against the man's forehead. Once, twice, and that is all that it takes for the man to keel over. So it puts him back on the car. leaning the man's head forward. The woman beside him whimpers as the asset walks around the car. And as it closes its other hand, the human hand as the asset calls it, around her throat and waits for her struggle to seize. 

Karpov praises him upon seeing the package, but takes the credit for the whole operation. The Asset is used to it. And to ensure maximum efficiency, Karpov requires the asset to be wiped again. So it sits down in the chair and thinks Stark, and for some reason it can’t stop thinking about flying cars. 

-

Mission Report. August 7. 1996 -

She moves well, the little red haired thing. Not a child anymore, but not a woman. She still has that willowy look of a little girl, tall and slender without any curves. But the look in her eyes is that of a grown woman, who has seen things, who has already done things. And she tries hard, she tries hard to best it, but she can’t quite. She is still to fast, to impulsive and acts to much without thinking. 

It will learn her patience, in the end, she will learn. 

She gets to have a name, Natalia. 

They never strip her of her identity, not fully. And the Asset understands that. She is a weapon too, but a different sort of weapon than it is. She is the sort that will move in between people, who will laugh and smile and talk and charm and cast looks over her shoulder. She has to blend in. And the asset isn’t that sort of weapon. 

The asset is a shadow and a ghost, it is a fist that scares people in the dark. It comes from all places, all little corners and drags people down to the dark abyss from which they will never recover. It is a monster, that doesn’t talk, it merely exists and is a shell, it is a sponge that will take all that is thrown in its direction and will still keep moving forward. That is what it is trained to do. 

And that is what it is training her to do. She has the elegance, she has the actual dance, they trained her in balet, she is light on her feet and moves around with ease. But she still has to learn true power. She has to learn how to become unstoppable, to use any force that comes against her and turn it against the owner, to make it her own. 

Later, it will learn her how to work from the shadows, it will learn her all it knows. It is a strange mission in that sense, where it gets to nurture instead of destroying. And she takes to it, she sits by it when they eat, and occasionally she talks to it. The Asset is reluctant, and fears the chair that will come if it indulges her. But it is hard listening all those times without saying anything. It is hard teaching without talking. And Karpov allows it, Karpov allows her to come close to it, and allows the Asset to use it’s strained, hoarse voice for the first time in… ever? It thinks of a deer. 

So for the first time that it can remember, which isn’t saying much, the asset laughs. And when Karpov and the thin lipped woman that tutors Natalia in other matters consider that they no longer need its services, they wipe it and it forgets the bond that it had with Natalia, the first warm touch it can recall. 

-

Mission report. April 4. 1997 - 

The other Winter Soldiers are reckless, they are dangerous, they are unreliable.

The Asset is not jealous. It does not care that Hydra wishes to expand the Winter Soldier program. To the Asset all that matters is the mission. And if there are others doing other missions, then so be it. More power to Hydra. More power to the dark abyss, more power for the good of mankind. 

But these Winter Soldiers, or coming to be Winter Soldiers, it doesn’t trust. There is something in its stomach, warm and discomforting, squirming at the sight of the soldiers it is supposed to train. They’re fickle, like glowing coals in a hot summer. They might be nothing to worry about, but they might set the world ablaze. 

They are volunteers, they still have an identity because of this. And somehow, the asset thinks that is where Hydra made their mistake. But it doesn’t say this, it isn’t asked, it just trains them and fights them after they have received the injections. After they’ve received the blue which sends a ghost of a burn through its metal arm, which is odd, it doesn’t feel anything there. It can tap the metal, the plates will hum and buzz and shift, but it will not feel anything. So why does it feel a pain by its forearm?

The volunteers have to much of a mind of their own, they were supporters of Hydra, they were a kill squad, but they were dependant on talking to one another, they were dependant on making their own choices when they were dropped in a warzone, or in a city or in the woods or in the ocean. They do not understand that Winter Soldiers don’t make choices for themselves. 

And they make that mistake when they finally do overpower the Asset, it can feel the broken ribs and the bruises forming, it can feel the pain that will follow it to its sleep and most likely into cryo. But at least the asset remains loyal, and the projects they flip like a switch. And they turn, they turn in the blink of an eye and they show that they will not be proper Winter Soldiers. 

Karpov sees this, and realises this as the Asset guides him to safety and looks the gate behind them. Putting them into safety and away from the projects that it loathes. Not for beating it, it can understand that and accept defeat even if it does not like it, but it loathes the project for the wildfire that they are. While the asset sees itself as cool, blank water. No one can tell what is going on underneath the surface, and under the surface the water shapes the bank just the way that it wishes the ground to be. Wildfire burns everything to the ground. 

And they do. The projects are put into cryo, uncertain of when they will be taken out of it. Till they can be controlled, they say. But the asset believes that will not happen. The asset cant see how the projects would willingly walk into the chair (its chair, it thinks, feeling jealousy, its chair) and let it work its magic. 

The Projects are unreliable. And the asset remains reliable. 

-

Mission report. March 9. 2009

Odessa is beautiful. But the asset isn’t there to sightsee. It has been there for the past few days now, waiting for the arrival of Natalia, her quick escape through the city. It has been waiting by the route that itself would take, by the route that it has taught Natalia to use. And it waits, it can be left alone, the asset has shown that many years ago when they lost it in New York. 

Where the Asset wandered around for a month, lost and confused, but showing up reliably to the pick up points even if Hydra did not. Building communication devices as it had been taught, and signalling its location. Ever since that incident they set it free for up to weeks at a time for a mission. But not without a tracker, just incase. And the Asset leaves the tracker reliably in the hem of its trousers, of it’s t-shirt, of its vest, of its gloves and boots and masks and sunglasses and on its weapons and on its bag and on its belt. It’s a silent agreement. 

Natalia comes at night, driving a dark suv for night, blending in with the night. She will switch the vehicle to a grey one in the morning. Brighter vehicles don’t get as dirty, and grey still shows signs of wear and tear. It will blend in just fine wherever she wishes to go. 

It takes the new weapon that it was given of Hydra, and wonders just when its Natalia (even if it can only vaguely remember her dancing, practicing ballet and looking at it through her red hair, it remembers talking and laughing) strayed so far from her path. When SHIELD got her in their claws and tore her away from the KGB, tore her away from what was right. 

It aims the new weapon and pulls the trigger. Watching how the disc skitters over the ground to the car and attaches itself to the underside of it. The Asset has found a deep, burning love for that weapon, a childish excitement as it detonates, flipping the car over and bringing the two passengers in a frenzy as Natalia loses all opportunity to control her car while they are so close to a cliff. It wonders if she fears for her life at that moment. Or if she doesn’t care like the asset does. 

It puts the weapon back on its bike, which has never been unpacked, and takes the rifle. As it looks through the scope it watches how Natalia pulls herself out from under the car. A bruise on her temple, blood on her hands and arms from the glass. She’s no longer a willowy child, and sometime when it had been in cryo has its little Natalia had grown into a woman, who looks around, confused and scared and uncertain of what just had happened. 

The look lasts a second before she remembers her mission, and through the scope it follows her as she gets up and goes to the other side of the car. She tugs at the door, pulling it open and reaches in. The asset sees its target fall to the ground as she loosens their seatbelt, and it watches and waits for a chance, an opportunity which it knows will not come easily. Not when every second is moving faster. Not when Natalia most likely has already alerted SHIELD. 

So when it pulls the trigger, the one bullet that soars through the late night sky and through Natalia’s stomach and into the Assets targets head, it doesn’t feel a slightest bit of regret. The Asset does as it’s told, and it assassinates its target. Natalia just happened to have been in the way.


	18. Chapter 18

2012, May 4th - 

The hardest part about watching his daughter die, had been that his wife hadn’t even been aware of it happening. There had been moments, many moments near the end when he had felt like giving up. Where being strong for his daughter who didn’t say it, didn’t show it but was terrified, had drained him beyond belief. And at night, all he had wanted to do was to be comforted. 

But Steve had come to the painful realisation that he had to face it alone. His daughter needed him, his sons needed him, Josephine and John had needed him, and Eva had needed him for completely different reasons. So at night, after hour after hour spent at the hospital, all he had wanted was a hug. And he had often debated on turning to drink. 

He hadn’t done so. Every time he considered the bottle he thought of Maria. And the next time he thought of Jaime, so distraught. And the next time he thought of Joseph, facing death for the first time and being a little boy. And of Josephine, so confused at what was going on with her mother but at the same time understanding more than anyone thought she did. 

At the age of sixty-eight he had buried a daughter. And at the age of seventy he had buried a wife. 

Aging was a terrifying prospect, the creaking bones, the variety of maladies, the fatigue, the lack of sleep. And oh how the lack of sleep whispered things in his ears, things that made him doubt everything. Dark thoughts, that dragged him into quicksand which he found difficulty getting out of. 

And his children, he wanted them close, losing his daughter had only made him want to clutch his sons closer. He had been aware of the reality that something might happen to Jaime out at sea, and after seeing two coffins the fear of a third was washing over him. But Jaime was a grown man, and when he set back out to sea? All that Steve could do was to wave him off and wish him the best. 

And then there was Joseph, still young, a second wife now, children of his own, a job, a home, a loving dog and cat. Joseph moved on, Joseph had something to focus on and to help him through his mourning. And all that Steve had left was an apartment filled to the brink of memories. 

He had lived in that apartment for seventeen more years, but nothing had ever been the same again. He still went to the book club, to the movie club, and the painting class for as long as he felt his fingers were capable. But his fingers grew old and clumsy, and eventually the people he knew started to drift away. Other illnesses, moving, death. So he was alone, and he stopped going. 

Book club was another thing that crept up on him. His sight began to fail him, and what was the point of going to a book club if you couldn’t read the books any longer? The movie club changed, younger members, so newer movies were brought in. In a time where he once had been able to sit alongside his peers and see the old movies in black and white, was now changed with twenty-something year olds, which was great, but when every movie had begun to have an underlying message that Steve truly, utterly could not see amidst all the pointless violence? He stopped going. 

There was technology, televisions that got larger and larger and phones that people carried in their pockets. There was internet and books in tablets. There were games and social media, there were fashion choices he didn’t understand and there was something called reality television and new food dishes that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. And his grandchildren, now also great grandchildren knew of everything, and they gave him such a look of pity, and almost annoyance when he asked them to explain something to him. He didn’t recognize the time he lived in. 

Of course, the new era had brought along plenty of other amazing things, and Steve hailed all of that. But it just went to fast for him to keep up. So he moved to the Meadows. There, time went slower, there, he spent time with people he found that he knew, who had the same issues as he did, and who didn’t mind having no television on and just listening to old cds, who played cards and who talked to one another. Who shared tales of this phone that their children had gotten them, or a computer that they didn’t know how to turn on, but told their family they loved and used anyhow because it made them happy. 

At the Meadows, Steve found himself at home, now as an inhabitant rather than the husband of a woman who lived there. There were two nurses left from Eva’s time, who were all but pleased to find out that Steve had moved in. And his next door neighbour turned out to be Arthur, who he had spent so many hours talking with outside the school waiting for their children to be released. And on the other side his neighbour was a lady named Muriel, in a wheelchair after one of her legs had gotten amputated because of diabetes complications. But she didn’t let that bring her down and rolled by every morning to ask Steve when he finally was going to ask her for a dance, she’d laugh and roll off. 

Yes, at the Meadows he felt good, he felt he had friends, and a long, old cloud of loneliness lifted from his shoulders. At The Meadows, amidst people of his own generation who still knew of everyone through mouth by mouth word, he slowly felt himself become Steve Rogers again, the man who had gone against everything and married a Puerto Rican lady. The man who had gotten beat up in alleys defending what was right, who had tried to volunteer for the war so many times over and who failed every damn time. 

Steve felt himself become a person again. 

That morning had been like any other. Steve had woken up, dressed himself and brushed his teeth. He had been polite to the nurses when he saw them the first time for the day and Muriel asked when he was going to ask her to a dance. He spent five minutes talking to the janitor in Spanish, who was always pleased for the slight distraction and had gone for breakfast. 

The morning had been slow, he had read the newspapers, chatted a little bit with Arthur and caught up on the news of what had happened during the night. There was always gossip to go around, and while Steve had initially hated it, he had found himself get drawn into it. Lunch had been a simple potato soup with sandwiches, which suited everyone just fine. A meal to heavy would result in everyone wanting to sleep. And The Meadows had been an expert at putting all of its inhabitants on somewhat of a routine during the night. It had been necessary.

Steve had no reason to expect the remains of the afternoon to be any different, even if he felt a little bit dozy and wanted to nap. To avoid ending up in an armchair and falling asleep he had wandered up and down the corridors of his floor. All exercise was good exercise once you reached a certain age.

He was minding his own business really, when two nurses ran past him. He frowned at that, knowing the policy staff had of not running in the hallway. He remembered that very well from Eva’s days. Never run, just walk, determined if you have to, but just walk, it worries those who get confused. Something about the way that they carried themselves, the stress that came alongside watching someone else worry could quickly carousel into something worse. 

It wasn’t any of his business however, and Steve decided that someone must have gone through the dreadful fall and they needed to help them up again. Sometimes the hands on the spot were not enough. But when he saw the two nurses turn into the communal area, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

Sure he wore hearing aids, but with them he could hear just as well as anybody. And he hadn’t heard anyone fall into the floor, there were no soothing voices and no one crying for help, no panic, nothing. Just silence and the buzz from a tv. 

Steve wormed his way past the two nurses by the doorway and entered the living room, he couldn’t spot a free arm chair which his knees would have been grateful for. They ached if he had to stand still long enough. Instead he shuffled over to Arthur, who had claimed the best seat in the house and always sneakily did so by leaving first of all during lunch. 

“What’s happening?” Steve asked, switching his cane around and pushed his glasses up his nose again. Squinting at the television screen and wondered if he needed to go and see an optician again. 

“Something’s going down further up in the city.” Arthur responded without looking away from the television. “They say there’s a hole in the sky right above the Stark tower.” 

“The Stark Tower?” Steve repeated, but with that small bit of information he could make out what was on the screen. He saw the building, the narcissistic sign of egocentrism that belonged to Tony Stark. He saw the black void above the building, and he saw… a slug, no, a monster, crawl out of the hole. No, that was also wrong, it moved with ease in the air, almost as if it was swimming. “What the hell is that?”

“I got to get home to mom.” A nurse named Alice said, turning around on the spot and pushing her way through the doorway. No one made a move to stop her, they let her slip in between them and let her run off. 

“I’d say that, is one ugly bitch.” Arthur said so deadpan, that it almost was funny. Steve watched the television screen flicker, static in the image, or recording or whatever it was. Electricity darting across the sky and hitting the monster, forcing it back up into the hole. Steve could hear the thunder in the distance, and wondered how he had missed it in the first place. 

The nurses had begun whispering to one another. Discussing under one another in hushed voices on what to do. When that Hulk had fought its way through Harlem they had been out of reach. Now Steve could hear the thunder, could almost feel it in the sky. And he saw the green dart across the sky that was the Hulk, happily launching itself at another one of those monsters.

“How many are there?” Steve asked, gripping the armchair for extra support now without tearing his eyes away from the television. Wondering for how long they would have the privilege of television before even that went out. 

“They keep on coming honey.” Muriel mused from the other side of Arthur. “That hole? The must have been pouring out of the sky for fifteen minutes by now. And there’s no slowing down. There’s a couple of nutcases down there tryin’ to slow them down.” Muriel said with her slight southern drawl in her voice. “Got the Iron man and that Thunder guy working.”

There was another tremble and the building shook. Steve looked up to the ceiling, wondering just how close that crash had been, or whatever had flown through. He wasn’t certain, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to find out either. There came a zoom, and a dark shadow flew past the windows, causing multiple people to flinch out, some of the nurses screamed at the sight. 

“I think.” Muriel rolled past Arthur and Steve. “That now is an excellent time to go and get my baseball bat.” Nobody could argue against her, and they let her roll herself out into the hallway again. Some more nurses had disappeared and some of the elderly began to whisper. Some had left like Muriel, and Steve could see how one nurse was helping Sally up from her chair, who was getting more and more stressed and thus making it harder on herself. The Janitor Sebastian came to her aid. 

“We should go.” Steve suggested to Arthur, who snorted and shook his head. 

“To where Steve? Do you see the speed those things fly at, by the time we make it to the front door they’ve seen every tourist attraction there is in this blasted city. If there’s anything left of it.” 

“We can’t just sit here, we’ll be sitting ducks.” Two more dark shadows raced past the windows, making them tremble. The worried tension began to grow in the group, even if it was slowly being emptied out. 

Head nurse Thomas returned, whispering as low as he could to his staff. “I can’t reach through to anyone. The lines are overloaded.” The sky rumbled loudly, making Steve’s trousers vibrate and an instant later there came a slam of thunder followed by a screech. 

Next Steve heard was a slam against the wall, and all he saw was dust and brick falling all over. There were several screams, followed by a high pitched screech and clicking noises as whatever had fallen through the wall rolled over and stood up again. There was more rumble in the sky, deafening and Steve saw the bug like creature look out to the sky before turning its focus on the remaining people in the room. 

It raised its gun to the woman that had been helping Sally up, both having fallen to the floor covered in dust and bleeding. Both women screamed, clambering backwards while Sebastian raised a hand up to shield himself as the creature stepped forward with a heavy thud, seemingly unphased that it just had been tossed through a brick wall. It had a purpose, and it had zeroed in on a target. The thing screamed at the two women and Steve could hear how the gun began to charge. 

Anyone would have done it, he would have argued. So he acted without giving it much thought. The cane was mostly for an assisted balance, he didn’t need it as much as it looked like he did. And he couldn’t let the monster go after Sally, who had lived a life with nothing but misery and the woman Helena who was one of the most caring nurses in staff. 

Steve hadn’t been quite certain what he had expected to happen. He had never been the strongest one on the block, and any strength he could have bragged about was long gone. He hadn’t expected the cane to break, and when all that happened was a dull thud all Steve had succeeded with was getting the bug’s attention. It lowered it’s gun and turned on Steve, jaw moving in such a way that it reminded him of a spider. 

Taking a shaky step back, the monster took one forward and screamed at him. Not willing to die on that day, Steve gripped the cane again and jabbed it at the monsters face. He hit it straight in one eye, causing the creature to jowl in what Steve supposed was pain. It reached up to its eyeball, black goo pouring out from it. There was a charging sound and a blast flew over Steve’s shoulder, squaring the creature straight in its face and this time knocking it backwards on its feet. 

“Well done old man.” A flash of red and gold landed beside him, Steve barely had the time to turn to his side to see the Iron Man grabbing the leg of the creature and propelling them both outwards of the building. He dropped the creature and gave it another blast for good measure, before flying off again. 

“Si. Well done Mr Rogers.” Sebastian said out of breath, getting up from the floor and helped Helena up. 

“De nada, Sebastian. De nada.” Was the only thing that crossed Steve’s mind to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I haven't been keeping up with the promised posting days at all, I had some more health issues, and I'm deeply sorry for the delay


	19. Chapter 19

2014, January - 

“Okay, but you have to admit that there is a lot more space here.” Joseph persisted, swapping the plastic bag that he was carrying to his other hand. Steve chose not to answer the comment and just kept walking forward, knowing fully well what sort of trap the question was and how it would steer the conversation from that point onwards. 

No matter what Joseph did (and he did it all for a good cause, Steve was sure), he would never come to find Washington as home. He would never truly enjoy himself in the city, at the end of the day he felt lonely. And he had only looked at his son when he had suggested he used facebook to keep in touch with everyone back in Brooklyn. At least Joseph had the luck of being a little bit savvy on the internet and figure things out. 

“Is there anything else we need to pick up?” Steve asked, pausing by the red light and pushed the button. Looking ahead of himself and across the street. The question seemed to be enough to get Joseph on a different track of mind. He looked up to judge the traffic, then to the lights. Still red.

“No, I think that’d be everything actually. Diane hasn’t texted me anything else so. You getting tired?” Joseph stepped out onto the street the moment the cars stopped, leaving Steve to sigh and step out once the light turned to green a few seconds later, always impatient. Joseph turned in the middle of the street and waited for Steve to catch up. 

“Bored.” Steve didn’t want to admit that he was looking forward to going home and sitting. He wanted to go to the car which gave him immense difficulty in sitting down in, but once he’d be comfortable, he wouldn’t have to think about anything else. 

“We’ll head back then.” Joseph’s bloody phone was out again and in his hand. His son barely looked up from the toxic screen that was the present and kept walking ahead. By a miracle, Steve thought, he didn’t bump into anyone. “Nanette just texted me saying they’re all dropping by for dinner tonight, kids and all, spaghetti sounds good with you?” 

The question was asked in such a manner that it didn’t feel like a question at all. Steve wouldn’t have had any objections to it of course. He was always glad to see his grandchildren, even if it hurt him a little bit that the accompanying great grandchildren didn’t always find him interesting to talk to. The worst were the youngest ones, they were the ones who were scared of him for reasons he couldn’t explain. Then again he couldn’t explain why old man Matthews at the corner of the block had scared him when he was four-years-old. 

“Of course.” Steve felt the stress breathe down his neck when the lights turned over to red for the pedestrians, and green for the cars and he still had to get up on the sidewalk. The drivers were polite and waited for him to take that final step up with the help of Joseph. 

“You should take the chair more often dad. Then you wouldn’t get tired.” Joseph didn’t have any hint of annoyance in his voice, but Steve knew that he was harboring it. That it was hidden away deep inside of him and not daring to come out of respect for him. 

Steve chose not to comment, and if he would be physically able he would walk past his son and ahead to the car. Unfortunately, Steve’s rushed was Joseph’s leisurely stroll. The phone was tucked away but it barely took thirty seconds before it plinged again. However Steve was glad that Joseph left it at that and didn’t take out his phone again. 

“Do you hear that?” Joseph then stopped dead in his tracks, Steve passed by him with two steps before he did the same. Joseph looked around. From around the block came two men running. 

“Hear what?” Steve asked, fumbling with his finger behind his ear and flipped the miniscule switch that turned them on. He heard well enough for conversations, but at times wandering around in the city they became to much. And the sound was overwhelming, the bustle of people, bags moving around, the intrusion on a woman talking on her phone. 

“I think that’s gunshots.” Joseph seemed to release the devil with his words. As he finished more people came round the corner, running in panic. There came a blast, a sudden draft and a vibration in the ground that made Steve’s trousers tremble. There came blasts of fire and shrapnel flying just from around the corner. People ducked and screamed, falling over and scrambling back to their feet before they ran off again. “Dad that is gunshots we have to go!” 

There was a part of Steve that wanted to turn and run, that wanted to hoist his cane up underneath his arm and take off. He wanted to run like he was a little boy, dashing in between all the adults and making his way where no one was thinking of. 

But it wasn’t that simple, and while one half of his brain was already miles away, having torn itself off the concrete and breathless and hiding in a dark alley that wouldn’t give him away to the world, the other half wanted to know more about the explosion. Wanted to watch the trainwreck lit on fire pass by and crash.

Joseph tugged at Steve’s arm, grip made of iron and refusing to let go. It made him stumble, and it did tear his eyes away from the mass amount of people that came by. But he was slow, and the grip of Joseph’s arm burned in his bicep, frustrating him at the same time. Somehow the idea of falling was by far more terrifying than being caught up in live gunfire. 

“Joseph slow down!” Steve hissed, trying to pull his arm free from his son as more people passed by them. “Not so fast.” Although he understood the urgency, he could hear the gunfire in the distance. 

Joseph looked over his shoulder, exasperated at Steve. “Come here.” Joseph eventually tugged at Steve’s arm again and it felt like it would pop out of it’s socket, he could feel his skin under the pressure and was certain he’d have a bruise come evening. If he made it to the evening. 

Joseph pulled him by a car, kneeling down behind it. Steve just leant against it, knowing if he knelt down that he wouldn’t be coming up anymore. “This is the opposite of safe Joseph.” Steve snapped to his son, glancing over the car just as he saw a man come round the corner.

It seemed like a scarf covered the lower half of his face, but as he got closer Steve saw that it was a mask hiding under the unruly long brown hair. His left arm shimmered in the sun as he reloaded the weapon, marching down the street and didn’t give a flying fuck about the people running away from him. Then he took the weapon in both hands, slowing his pace and zeroed in on something. Steve could hear the faint whisper in his hearing aids, a voice speaking, but far to faint for Steve to make out what it was. The aids had the volume turned up way to high. 

The man stopped, and Steve still looked over the car to the figure, seeing that the arm that shimmered in the sun was made out of metal. For a moment Steve wondered how that even was possible. He had seen prosthetics before, but none ever like that. The next moment Steve discarded the thought, Iron Man flew in a suit he built himself. The Hulk was a man turning into a green fellow and Thor was a god that summoned thunder. And not to talk about the mutants. A metal arm was the least of what was strange. 

The man halted, and it occurred to Steve that the man was listening to the same voice that his hearing aids were picking up on. He knelt down, took something from his back and rolled it under the car. He stood up again, aiming the gun. 

Next the car on the other end of the street blew up. The windows of the ford he and Joseph were behind shattered, pulverised and fell down. Steve’s hearing aids magnified the blast that already would have been devastating, but now it felt like both of his ear drums had been blown out. He screamed and Joseph covered his head with his arms, glass sliding down onto his back from his neck. 

He tore of the hearing aids and wondered if it was possible for his ears to bleed. They fell to the world and all that Steve could hear was a loud, sharp ringing tone that overwhelmed everything else that was going on beyond him. He looked at his son and saw that he was screaming. He looked through the broken windows of the cars, gripping ahold of the door to have something to balance on. Glass stung his fingers as he began to bleed. 

The man had in the meantime, somehow gotten a woman up on his shoulders that had appeared out of nowhere. He was struggling to get her off, and stumbled back against the ford where Steve and Joseph were taking cover behind. He slammed his back against the car and Steve could feel the entire metal skeleton of it rock with the force, if he hadn’t held on to the door he would have fallen. 

The red haired woman grunted from the slam, and lost her grip of his neck. She rolled off the car and disappeared out of Steve’s vision. The man did to, and when he stood up again he held the gun in his hands again. 

The woman, she had been at New York, Steve realized now when he saw her up close. The Black widow. She tossed something to the man and Steve could barely see how he lost his composure. The metal arm glistened and Steve saw darts of electricity chasing over it, saw how the plates in the arm seemed to open wide, sit on edge in a way not unlike to goosebumps in a cold breeze. It looked like it hurt, at the way the man tore of the little disc or beacon or whatever it was, and rolled his arm around in his shoulder to regain his movement back.

The woman had only backed up a few steps, and Steve was struck with the thought that it was foolish, that she should have run when he clearly was after her. The widow didn’t seem to think about it in the same way, she got into a stance which looked physically impossible, and the man wasted no time in gaining on her. 

They fought in total harmony. Any movement the widow made, the man blocked and turned to his advantage, something that the widow did in return. It almost looked like they were dancing, a violent dance where the man let a knife slip from hand to hand and tried to cut her at every opening that he saw. And she just tried to steal the knife from him, something he did not seem to appreciate. 

Steve flinched out of his skin when he felt hands on his back. He looked at Joseph, wide eyed and saw his son's lips move and pointing ahead of them. The faint push was enough to set Steve’s rooted limbs moving. He glanced at the Widow, watched her grab the metal arm and let go, another beacon was put on the arm and electricity darted over it again. The man lurched forwards and the plates expanded. The widow grabbed his head and brought it down on her knee in a swift kick, sending him backwards. 

The man rolled over, went on all threes and dodged another kick from her. He pulled the second beacon from his arm and Steve looked away, being guided by Joseph. As they came around the car Steve saw how the metal hand was gripping the widow’s throat, slamming her to the ground. He pinned her legs down underneath his own and pressed his full weight against her tiny frame. 

The Widow struggled, and out of the corner of his eyes Steve could see her arms flail against the metal, to short to reach anywhere worthwhile. He saw her gasp for breath and he saw the man staring down at her, brown hair hanging down. 

Steve tore at his arm, both would be bruised now anyway so what was the point? Except this time it freed itself from Joseph’s grip. The Widow had helped save New York, he owed her his life, and now when she was so close and in need of help he couldn’t just walk away. He just needed to take two steps, take his cane and swing. 

He felt the tremble of impact travel up from the steel to his shoulders as it hit the mans back. The man began to look up, and first thing Steve got to see was steel grey eyes with a hint of blue. The mask had been ripped off. And the next thing he saw was a Ghost. 

He could feel Joseph tugging at Steve’s shirt, trying to get him away. But Steve couldn’t tear himself away, not when he saw Bucky with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against a barrel and laughing at something someone else had said. Not when he saw Bucky out on the dance floor, dancing with Dot or any other nameless girls. Whispering to them and making them laugh. Bucky in his uniform that Steve had envied. Bucky practicing so many late hours in the gym for a new boxing match. Bucky charming their art teacher more than actually drawing. Bucky with a pink tint of a blush on his cheeks and an empty bottle in between them and so drunk that he stopped making sure that Steve didn’t see his cards. 

Bucky on top of the Black Widow and strangling her with a metal arm. 

Steve wasn’t sure if he had actually said his name or not, he couldn’t hear it, and his mind had frozen beyond repair. The tug of Joseph on his shirt set him moving backwards, and then the Widow slammed her palm up to Bucky’s nose. The impact knocked his head back and she squirmed free. 

Joseph didn’t let Steve see more and just pulled him away. Steve was hardly aware of how he was walking, how he was running and even how fast they were going. He heard the ringing in his eyes. And he saw Bucky leaning against a barrel with his arms crossed over his chest, laughing. And he saw the cold steel and blue eyes that belonged with his friend, fueled with rage. A look of a murderer. 

A look that was Bucky, but at the same time clashed with absolutely everything that Steve knew and remembered of his friend.

-

Diane was shouting at Joseph in the kitchen. Steve couldn’t make out what they were hearing, it was to muffled. But at least the ringing had stopped, he could hear again, although it felt as if he was hearing everything underwater. He couldn’t make out a single word. He would make them take him to the hospital later to make sure he hadn’t gotten any permanent damage, but now that wasn’t on his mind.

And truth to be told he didn’t want to make out what they were saying either. He didn’t care. None of what Diane had to say mattered to Steve at all at that moment. He was sure that she was tossing the word senile around. It was a personal favourite whenever she was angry about Steve. 

It was dark outside, and to be frank Steve had no clue of how Joseph had gotten them home in the first place. He had moved along with his son in almost perfect harmony, a suppleness that he didn't even know he possessed. Or it was because his mind was elsewhere. That his mind was still stuck amongst gunshots and explosions. Of Bucky with long hair, that grimace and metal fingers glistening around someone’s throat. 

It couldn’t be Bucky. Bucky had been dead since the forties, since the war. It was over seventy years ago that Winnie had sat down on his couch and told him about that beige envelope that had murdered her boy when George had opened it. Dead in Austria, not far of the border to Italy. It couldn’t be Bucky, at this point there shouldn’t be anything left of him but bones. 

Bucky wouldn’t strangle a woman and he wouldn’t have a metal arm. 

But weirder things had happened since Bucky had died in war, hadn’t there? There had been mutants, men and women who could control others with their minds, who controlled metal and who made themselves look like someone else in the blink of an eye. Tony Stark built himself a suit and had flown into a wormhole into space. A god that had been worshipped by the Vikings had turned out to be real and brought thunder and rumble wherever he went. 

So it was entirely likely that Bucky could still live, right? Steve clung hopefully to the thought. He had thought about it as he had dug out the photo album. It could always have been a doppelganger. Hadn’t one of his great-grandchildren once told him that there were at least seven other people in the world who looked identical to you? Did that apply to people who had once lived? 

The thought had struck him that Bucky had a child with someone, who they didn’t know about. Maybe something short in Europe. But Steve felt in his gut that wasn’t the case. Those eyes he had looked at were identical. Those shoulders, the other human arm, they were more muscular true but everyone could gain and lose muscle mass. 

Steve had changed over the years, so of course Bucky could have. But at the core, Steve knew that he had been looking at his friend. Those eyes while murderous had been Bucky’s, and Steve had seen the gaze before back then, on the rare instances when Bucky had gotten furious with someone at night and he had been the one to initiate the fight. Except the look of today was by far worse. Back then there had just been anger, now there was downright cold fury. 

No, Steve decided, it wasn't Bucky. The man who he had seen was a shell of Bucky. 

He flipped a yellowed page in the photo album and found the pictures he was looking for. Over the years his collection of pictures of him and Bucky had diminished, some thrown out, some to worn out. Some had been given to the Buchanans. And now Steve barely was left with a dozen. 

Steve looked at the picture that had been used at the wake. The one where he was leaning against a barrel and laughing. Casual for its time. The hint of joy and happiness in his eyes. He still had a life to live, how old had they been when it had been taken? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? It had been one of Bucky’s friends who had said something, Steve wanted to remember now. 

And there was one with Dot, posing by a car that Bucky had loved that hadn’t even been theirs. Bucky with his arm around Steve’s shoulders, locking his head in place and Steve laughing. One with Bucky cuddling up to Mr Jacobs golden retriever and having the dog in his lap, persistent on giving him licks. One at Rebecca’s birthday party where he was cutting a cake with such focus. The picture that he had taken in his army uniform. But every picture he saw he just turned into the image of dead eyes staring back at him with that scowl, fingers around a throat and not even feeling as the Widow punched against the metal.

A shell, that was what he had seen. 

With clumsy fingers he took out one of the pictures from the album. The television in the bedroom was replaying the events of the day and Steve had been disappointed that no one had managed to film Bucky. He would have sat himself down and figured out how to pause the news so he could rewind. 

He looked at the picture of him and Bucky one summer at the park with their friends. Then to the one in his hand, another one at the gym, him smiling widely with those white teeth of his, his hair for once not gelled up so it set on fire the moment a match came to close. He had a wild look in his eyes, and Steve wanted to remember some ridiculous suggestion that had been thrown around that evening, one that Bucky had loved. 

The door opened, but Steve didn’t notice until Joseph slammed it shut behind him, muttering under his breath. Steve looked up to his son, glanced at the television but no Bucky on the screen. The picture in his hand had it, and watching that picture felt like home. Joseph came over. “Dad we’re taking you to the hospital this isn’t normal.” Joseph said as he reached by Steve’s side. 

It had everything to do with the argument. Steve knew that this was the sort of opportunity that Diane had been waiting for. For the past two years she had watched Steve like a hawk, waiting for him to slip up somewhere so she could put him in a home. This was her golden moment. Seeing ghosts from the pasts and friends long dead, that was a one way ticket to dementia and an old folks home. 

“No Joseph look at this.” Steve persisted, tugging at his sons shirt and tried to ignore how the bruise on his bicep hurt. He even thought that Joseph had torn the skin a bit, it broke so easily now, and it hadn’t been intentional, Steve knew that. 

“Dad.” Joseph said exasperated and tried to push the photo away. And perhaps for the first time in Steve’s life he raised his voice to his child. 

“Joseph look at the fucking photo!” Steve commanded Joseph, who looked down at him startled, not used to the loud tone or the harsh treatment. Hesitantly he took the photo, as if he was trying to decide if he wanted to appease his father. In the end he looked down at the photo. And Steve could see how the puzzlement came over him. 

“Look at that, and tell me that’s not him.” Steve tapped the photo, looked at Bucky again and imagined the colour in those eyes. Joseph’s brow furrowed in confusion, he opened and shut his mouth repeatedly. “Tell me, that wasn’t him.” 

“I mean…” There was hesitation in Joseph, rational arguing with the irrational. “Yes, fine, they look alike.” Joseph eventually admitted, looking back to Steve, glancing only a quick look of the photo. “Really alike. But dad, your friend died in the war. It’s impossible that’s him. It has to be someone who just happens to look a lot like him, okay?”

Steve didn’t agree, he took snatched the picture back and looked at it, twirled it in between his fingers. Joseph could say whatever she wanted, Diane could say whatever she wanted. Steve knew that he had seen Bucky. Bucky’s shell, but what was inside of him was gone, all there was left of Bucky was a remnant. But it had still been his friend. 

Even if nobody would ever believe him, Bucky Barnes was alive. He could feel it in his core. 

-

The Asset has never liked Alexander Pierce. As far as handlers go he’s not the worst but he’s also not the best. He falls somewhere in between. But there is something about the pompous way that he carries himself that the asset doesn’t like. It’s only grateful that it doesn’t have to spend time with Pierce in between missions. He is still kept on ice for months at a time. Before long even Pierce will disappear, and it won't have to deal with anymore. 

The Asset is sitting on a chair and rubbing its nose, it’s already healing but that doesn’t stop the throbbing from coursing through it. There’s a bloodied towel at its feet from cleaning away the blood, and the dislocated finger has already been set back into position. The Widow was good, she had gotten better, but the Asset still felt like it knew her its core.

It adjusts one of the straps by its boots and glances sideways to its chair, and wonders for a split second how Hydra manages to drag that big block of an electric chair all the way down into the bank. It has wondered before how they transport the asset itself when they need it elsewhere, but never asked. It doesn’t matter, as long as it can sleep through it all. 

There’s people coming down the stairs and the asset straightens up, watches as Pierce moves like he owns the place. It folds its fingers together, the cold metal feels good against his bruised finger. 

“I heard she got away.” Pierce speaks loud and clear, filling the entire vault with those five words alone. He buttons his jacket, then pulls one of the chairs over and sits down in front of the asset. It doesn’t say anything, unsure if it was a question or a statement. ”Well? Were there any complications?”

The Asset needs all of its self control to just tell Pierce that well, the widow got away. But mouthing off doesn’t lead anyone, anywhere. “She has an accomplice.” The Asset tells Pierce instead. “Mid Thirties. Dark skinned, former Military judged by close combat. Target assassinated.” 

“Good. Good, there’s some bright side to this.” Pierce said, the asset found it hard to judge if he was being sarcastic, or genuine. “Anything else?” 

“Fought with the Widow on the Highway. Attempted to neutralize. An old man distracted. The Widow broke my nose and got loose. Fought. She broke free and ran off, shot her through the shoulder. Her accomplice pulled her out. Lost track of both of them.” The Asset doesn’t take its eyes of Pierce, attempting to make the man uncomfortable. It doesn’t seem to work, Pierce chews on the inside of its cheek as he thinks. 

And the Asset’s mind trails back to the old man, the way he had stared straight at it. It was familiar in a way that it couldn’t explain. Pierce cleared his throat and stood back up, clearly having reached a decision. The asset pushes the old man out of its head, out of the brim of his skull and lets it fall into oblivion. It’s learned to do that, with some help of the chair, or maybe it is because it’s easier to sit in the chair and wipe the memories if there’s hardly anything to wipe. 

“Black Widow will come back for us. She is your new target, eliminate her. And this accomplice. Someone find out who the accomplice is and hand it over to the Asset, give him everything that you can find. Stock up on his weapons, clean them, fix them, whatever you have to do, do it. Stock up his ammo. Everything, just do it. I want him ready to go at eight. Understood?” Pierce commanded around the room, the weaponed men nodded. Understood. 

Pierce turned back to the Asset, who looked up to him. “Your new target is The Black Widow and her accomplice. Understood?”

The Asset nodded. “Understood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voila, well overdue, but the end of this fic, and thus the journey of this AU. I hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it! Much love to all the readers and commenters.


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